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Abstract
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INTRODUCTION: The world's highest rates of road traffic injuries occur in the Middle East. The region claims the global top spot both in terms of burden of suffering as well as resultant deaths. With the availability of recently updated data on road injuries, there is a need for analysis of emerging trends to plan trauma care capacity. We aimed to study the trends in road traffic injuries for the Middle East region in the past three decades.
Methods: We analyzed data on road injuries in the Middle East region obtained from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, a dataset managed by the Institute of Health Metrics, University of Washington, Seattle. This dataset is compiled from multiple sources including research studies, official statistics and hospital reports. Estimates (with upper and lower confidence levels) are calculated from reported data using sophisticated statistical modelling algorithms. Annual estimates are available from 1990 onwards, with the most update for 2017.
We obtained data for all Road Injuries (GBD code C.1.1) which includes motor vehicle road injuries, pedestrian road injuries, motorcyclist road injuries and cyclist road injuries. Notably, this category excludes non-transport injuries such as falls, drowning and firearm injuries. As GBD updates its data on a continuing basis, it is pertinent to note that we collated the latest data refresh in July 2019. Major outcome measures were deaths (cause-specific mortality rates), incidence and the burden of human suffering. Burden of suffering was measured using disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) which includes years lived with disability as well as years of life lost due to premature death. Thus, injuries in younger persons and more severe injuries result in higher DALYs.
Results: A total of 3.6 million road injuries occurred in the Middle East and North Africa region, leading to 132,000 deaths in 2017 alone. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), about 3,650 deaths occurred, corresponding to 10 driving-related deaths every day. In Saudi Arabia, the total number of deaths was 12,000 while in Egypt 27,000 people died in car injuries in one year. Table 1 shows the rates of injuries and deaths per 100,000 population, which allows for more meaningful comparisons. High-income Arab countries are experiencing a high incidence despite well-developed road and transport infrastructures (Figure 1). Low-income countries show a substantial burden of suffering due to more injuries at younger ages. Annuals trends from 1990 to 2017 indicate that while road injuries are decreasing in Western Europe and other parts of the world, the rates are still rising some countries in the Middle East. In UAE, fatal injuries are still rising indicating more severe collisions. Oman holds the leading position in the region while Saudi Arabia, UAE, Tunisia, Yemen are rising in ranks over the last two decades. Males are far more likely to experience a road-related injury or death, compared to females. Age distribution shows a peak incidence around 25 - 29 years while mortality rates are highest in the elderly. Unlike Western Europe where alcohol use is the leading risk factor, in this region alcohol ranks fourth. Within the category of road injuries, specific types include, in descending order of incidence, motor vehicle injuries (725 injuries per 100,000 population), pedestrian (192 injuries), motorcyclist (146), other transport (136), cyclist (116) and other road injuries (89), in the UAE in 2017...
Language: en |