Citation

Lunetta P, Lounamaa A, Sihvonen S. Inj. Prev. 2007; 13(4): 282-284.

Affiliation

National Public Health Institute, Injury Prevention Unit, Helsinki, Finland; Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, BMJ Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1136/ip.2006.012922

PMID

17686941

PMCID

PMC2598324

Abstract

Medicolegal autopsies are a vital tool for obtaining reliable injury mortality data. In Finland, medicolegal autopsies have increased from 13.6% of all deaths in 1970 to 23.8% in 2004. In fact, medicolegal autopsies are performed in 87.2% of all unintentional injury deaths, 98.3% of homicides and 99.5% of suicides. Finland has exceedingly high medicolegal autopsy rates compared with other countries. Autopsy rates should be appropriately considered when performing international comparisons of injury-related deaths.

Language: en