Unintentional injuries related mortality and morbidity among children1-59 months of age in Fars province, Iran

Abstract

Now a day, unintentional injuries as one of the most important factors of non-communicable diseases play a key role in the mortality and morbidity of Iranian 1- 59 months of age children. During recent years, several studies have been carried out in different parts of the country but different studies have different results that show the necessity of doing local researches to find local patterns of aforementioned injuries for policy making or intervening in order to solve the injuries problem. By use of databases of Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, data gathered during 2010 to 2015 has been used for mortality study and in case of morbidity, only data gathered in 2015 has been analyzed. Of 1578 death events from 2010 to 2014 among the target population, the most important causes of death were “congenital malformation and deformation and chromosomal abnormalities”, “unintentional injuries” and “diseases of the nervous system”. In case of unintentional injuries, from 2010 to 2015, among the target population, 382 death events have been registered in which the most important causes of death were “Traffic accidents”, “Accidental drowning and submersion” and “Other accidental threat to breathing” respectively. 59.2% of them were male and most male victims (52.6%) were living in rural areas. In case of unintentional injuries related morbidity, 5528 cases have been registered during the year 2015 in which 80.4% were in urban areas. The most vulnerable age group were children between 13-24 months of age. Homes had the greatest share among places of happened injuries. “Exposure to inanimate mechanical forces”, “falls” and “heat and hot substances” are the most frequent mechanisms of morbidity in the target population. Traffic accidents as the fourth mechanism of morbidity mostly occurred in children who were on board vehicles.