Open AccessLong-term trends in child and youth injury mortality in Taiwan, 1989-2007
Author(s) -
Ye-Hsu Lu,
Wu-Chien Chien,
Fu-Huang Lin,
YuLung Chiu,
Lu Pai,
Yu-Tien Chang,
Daniel Steve Villarreal,
Chih-Hong Pan,
Shuenn-Chin Chang,
Ke-Hsin Lin,
Chiao-Huang Lin,
Chein-Ting Chen,
Yang-Hua Lin
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
yīxué yánjiū zázhì/journal of medical sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.176
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 2542-4939
pISSN - 1011-4564
DOI - 10.4103/1011-4564.163822
Subject(s) - demography , medicine , injury prevention , homicide , poison control , occupational safety and health , suicide prevention , mortality rate , population , human factors and ergonomics , pediatrics , medical emergency , environmental health , surgery , pathology , sociology
Background: Injuries are the leading causes of death and contribute greatly to morbidity in children. Our study examined injuries′ age and gender-specific variations over time among children 0-19, from 1989 to 2007. Materials and Methods: Numbers of deaths caused by injury are drawn from Taiwan′s official Vital Statistics System. Mortality was age-adjusted to the US 2000 standard population. Temporal trends were analyzed by linear regression. Results: Both genders′ annual mortality rates and proportional mortality ratios of unintentional injuries declined significantly during 1989-2007. Conversely, an increasing trend of intentional deaths occurred. In general, during 1992-2007, increasing the rates of suicide deaths in ages 10-19 and of homicide deaths in ages 0-9 occurred. Boys had more suicide deaths than did girls. Conclusions: Unlike unintentional injuries, intentional injuries increased over the 1989-2007 period. Deaths in the subgroups of ages 0-19 and categorized by genders were caused by varying injuries