Open Access Research article

Unintentional injury mortality in India, 2005: Nationally representative mortality survey of 1.1 million homes

Jagnoor Jagnoor1,2, Wilson Suraweera1†, Lisa Keay2†, Rebecca Q Ivers2†, JS Thakur3,4†, Prabhat Jha1*† and Million Death Study Collaborators

  • * Corresponding author: Prabhat Jha jhap@smh.ca

  • † Equal contributors

Author Affiliations

1 Centre for Global Health Research, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael’s Hospital, and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

2 The George Institute for Global Health and Sydney School of Public Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

3 School of Public Health, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India

4 World Health Organisation, Country Office, New Delhi, India

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BMC Public Health 2012, 12:487 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-12-487

Published: 28 June 2012

Abstract

Background

Unintentional injuries are an important cause of death in India. However, no reliable nationally representative estimates of unintentional injury deaths are available. Thus, we examined unintentional injury deaths in a nationally representative mortality survey.

Methods

Trained field staff interviewed a living relative of those who had died during 2001-03. The verbal autopsy reports were sent to two of the130 trained physicians, who independently assigned an ICD-10 code to each death. Discrepancies were resolved through reconciliation and adjudication. Proportionate cause specific mortality was used to produce national unintentional injury mortality estimates based on United Nations population and death estimates.

Results

In 2005, unintentional injury caused 648 000 deaths (7% of all deaths; 58/100 000 population). Unintentional injury mortality rates were higher among males than females, and in rural versus urban areas. Road traffic injuries (185 000 deaths; 29% of all unintentional injury deaths), falls (160 000 deaths, 25%) and drowning (73 000 deaths, 11%) were the three leading causes of unintentional injury mortality, with fire-related injury causing 5% of these deaths. The highest unintentional mortality rates were in those aged 70years or older (410/100 000).

Conclusions

These direct estimates of unintentional injury deaths in India (0.6 million) are lower than WHO indirect estimates (0.8 million), but double the estimates which rely on police reports (0.3 million). Importantly, they revise upward the mortality due to falls, particularly in the elderly, and revise downward mortality due to fires. Ongoing monitoring of injury mortality will enable development of evidence based injury prevention programs.

Keywords:
Unintentional-injuries; Mortality; Verbal autopsy; India