Prevalence of Road Traffic Accidents in Iran: A Systematic Review, GIS and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Context: One of the major causes of death in Iran is the injuries caused by accidents. Information regarding the distribution of injuries caused by accidents can lead to appropriate decision making in the management of Red Crescent, emergency, and police forces. Objectives: The current study is carried out with the aim of studying the prevalence of road traffic accident in Iran using the GIS and meta-analysis study. Evidence Acquisition: Articles were identified through international searching databases including Pub Med, Scopus, Elsevier, Google Scholar, and Web of Science as well as Iranian Scientific Information Database (SID), Health barakatkns, MagIran, and Iran Medex. We systematically reviewed all studies reporting the prevalence of accident trauma in Iran. Results: A total of 2200 relevant records were identified by the electronic search, of which a total of 60 studies were identified as eligible papers, which were meta-analyzed for the pooled road traffic accidents in Iran. Overall, the prevalence of road traffic accidents in Iran was estimated as 51.50% (95% CI = 50.6% - 52.3%). The highest pooled road traffic accidents rate was related to the Guilan province (79.80% [95% CI = 79.1% - 80.5%]), while the lowest pooled road traffic accidents rate was in the Fars province, with the rates of 27.50% (95% CI = 26.3% - 28.8%). A descending of prevalence trend rate was observed during the year 2000 until 2010 (53.30% → 46.90%), however, after the year 2010 this trend increased (46.90% → 52.50%). Conclusions: The result showed the prevalence of the road traffic accidents decreased from North to South of Iran. In addition, more results showed an increasing trend of the rate of road traffic accidents in Iran, therefore, design safety strategy, according to the province and time trend, can be helpful.