Long-term trends in child and youth injury mortality in Taiwan, 1989-2007

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