Incidence of Pedestrian Traffic Injury in Sao Paulo Brazil

Abstract

Pedestrian traffic injuries represent an important cause of mortality, and although the occurrence rates are lower than collisions between vehicles, the lethality is much higher due to the vulnerability of the pedestrians. This study characterized the victims of traffic accidents as to gender, age group, period of occurrence, association with alcohol and drug use, place of accidents, diagnosis of attendance, evolution of victims and types of vehicles involved, in order to assist public managers in intervening in such scenario. It is a cross-sectional, quantitative, descriptive and retrospective epidemiological study of 2719 pedestrians injured in traffic accident records, during 2017 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Men were involved in 61.9% of the traffic accidents and the most affected age group was between 20 and 24 years (12.4%). The highest incidence was in the afternoon (12.2%), in the South region (4.5%) and 46.3% associated with cars. The lower limb traumas were the most frequent (32.3%) and 76.5% of the victims followed to hospital discharge. This study revealed the importance of the epidemiological analyses of traffic accidents. It is an important tool to guide governments to promote public and drivers education to respect the traffic regulations. And besides, it can be used to manage the assistance of the pedestrian victims of traffic accidents by the maintaining of the pre-hospital and hospital care teams in strategic locations to minimize the time between the accident and the victim’s care by the public Brazilian National Health System (Sistema Unico de Saude - SUS).