Epidemiological study of fatal road traffic accidents in ecuador

Background Traffic accidents represent a priority for public health since they are responsible for high mortality tolls, elevated economic costs and a significant social impact. Ecuador ranks as the seventh country in the World with a higher mortality rate. Aims To describe the main epidemiologic characteristics of deaths caused by traffic accidents from a time and space perspective. Methods Transversal and descriptive study was conducted using the data from National Transit Agency. The data includes all deaths due to traffic accidents in Ecuador registered from January to December 2016. An analysis of percentages and frequencies of the traffic accident fatalities was performed based on demographic, temporal and geographic components. In addition, Gross Mortality Rates (x100,000) and adjusted (x1,000) per province were calculated. Results From 1,976 fatalities registered in Ecuador in 2016, 81.1 per cent corresponded to men and 18 per cent to women. Mortality Rate resulted as 13.6 per 100,000 inhabitants. With respect to men, the major portion of deaths correspond to drivers (52.1 per cent), when as for women, it correspond to passengers (51 per cent). Saturdays (21 per cent) and Sundays (23.1 per cent) correspond to the days with greater percentage of deaths. The incidence was greater in highways of Guayas (23.3 per cent) and Pichincha (17.1 per cent). Selected by type, cause and implicated vehicles, the accidents that outstand are frontal side collision (28.5 per cent) and pedestrian-motor vehicle collision (22.6 per cent), in addition to traffic law violations (46.9 per cent) and motorcycle incidents (29.55) respectively. Conclusion The current study provides us, for the first time, a global perspective of the epidemiologic characteristics of fatal car accidents in Ecuador, contributing with better information for the design of national road safety regulations.