Epidemiology of Road Traffic Injury Fatalities among Car Users; A Study Based on Forensic Medicine Data in East Azerbaijan of Iran.

Objective: To study the epidemiology of car user road traffic fatalities (CURTFs) during eight years, in East Azerbaijan, Iran.

Methods: A total of 3051 CURTFs registered in East Azerbaijan forensic medicine organization database, Iran, during 2006-2014, were analyzed using Stata 13 statistical software package. Descriptive statistics ( p <0.05) and inferential statistical methods such as Chi-squared test and multivariate logistic regression with p <0.1 were applied.

Results: Of the 7818 road traffic injury (RTI) deaths, 3051 (39%) were car users of whom 71% were male (mean age of 36.7±18.5 years). The majority of accident mechanisms were vehicle-vehicle crashes (63.95%), followed by rollover (26.24%). Crash causing vehicle fall increased the pre-hospital death likelihood by 2.34 times. The prominent trauma causing death was head trauma ( in 62.5%). In assessing the role of type of counterpart vehicle on pre-hospital mortality, considering the other cars to be the reference group for comparison, deceased victims were 1.83 times more likely to die before hospital when the counterpart vehicle was a truck and 1.66 times more for buses.

Conclusion: Decreasing the car users' fatalities using appropriate strategies such as s eparating the roads for heavy and light vehicles and improving the injury related facilitation may be effective. Male drivers with low education could be prioritized for being trained.