Injury inequalities in the European Region: trends cross-country and within-country and potential COVID-19 impacts

Abstract

We will provide a review of the knowledge base from studies on injuries in the WHO European Region from 2010 to 2019, both cross-country and within-country, for all causes and cause-specific. The focus is whether inequalities between countries and within countries persist such that people from low socioeconomic status and from less affluent areas tend to die by injury to a greater extent than others. This has previously been observed for most causes of injury (e.g., traffic, self-directed violence, interpersonal violence, poisoning, burns) but also for several settings (e.g., home, work, transport) based on a review of socioeconomic disparities in injury risks from 1990-2006. In addition, the pandemic touches upon factors with a known impact, directly or indirectly, on the risk and social distribution of injuries (e.g. social isolation, change in transportation mode and volume, alcohohol consumption, etc.). Until the 2020-2021GBD data are available at the regional level for Europe, we hypothesise on how the pandemic may have affected the social distribution of injuries in the Region. For example, we hypothesise a significant decrease in road traffic related injuries due to lockdown measures (reduced commuting to work, 24-hour curfews). There may also be an increase in unintentional injuries related to children spending increased hours in the home environment and an increase in do-it-yourself injuries in adults. We also see a possible increase in self-harm injuries due to the mental ill health burden related to confinement and social isolation, but data thus far from single EU countries do not report an increase in suicides. We will then present a research agenda for investigating how the pandemic has affected the injury burden in the Europe Region.