Abstract
Injuries are a growing public health concern in China, accounting for more than 30% of all Person Years of Life Lost (PYLL) due to premature mortality. This study analyzes the trend and disease burden of injury deaths in Chinese population from 2004 to 2010, using data from the National Disease Surveillance Points (DSPs) system, as injury deaths are classified based on the International Classification of Disease-10th Revision (ICD-10). We observed that injury death accounted for nearly 10% of all deaths in China throughout the period 2004–2010, and the injury mortality rates were higher in males than those in females, and higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Traffic crashes (33.79–38.47% of all injury deaths) and suicides (16.20–22.01%) were the two leading causes of injury deaths. Alarmingly, suicide surpassed traffic crashes as the leading cause of injury mortality in rural females, yet adults aged 65 and older suffered the greatest number of fatal falls (20,701 deaths, 2004–2010). The burden of injury among men (72.11%) was about three times more than that of women's (28.89%). This study provides indispensible evidence that China Authority needs to improve the surveillance and deterrence of three major types of injuries: Traffic-related injury deaths should be targeted for injury prevention activities in all population, people aged 65+ should be encouraged to take individual fall precautions, and prevention of suicidal behavior in rural females should be another key priority for the government of China.
Highlights
Various types of injuries collectively are a growing public health issue which has become an important cause of death throughout the world
Basic Information of Injury Deaths in China, 2004–2010 In the Disease Surveillance Points (DSPs) system, the rates and proportions of death from injuries in China are categorized by gender, age and geographical region, respectively
The number of deaths caused by injuries accounted for about 10% of all deaths in China during the study period and the total number of injury deaths was 25,858–32,281 in rural areas and 8,645–11,815 in urban areas (2004–2010)
Summary
Various types of injuries collectively are a growing public health issue which has become an important cause of death throughout the world. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening; by 2004, the gross domestic product per person in the richest province was 13 times greater than that in the poorest province [7]. All these contribute to the astonishing reality that injury has silently grown to be the fourth leading cause of death in China [8]. Injury is the leading cause of death in China from age 1–39 [12], causing annual loss of 12.6 million potentially productive years of life, a loss greater than for any disease group [13]. The results will serve to national injury prevention strategies, and, hopefully, our conclusions will help push forward the movement of injury control in China
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