Citation

No Author(s) Listed. Scand. J. Public Health 2008; 36(8 Suppl): 187-192.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Associations of Public Health in the Nordic Countries Regions, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1403494808097607

PMID

19033316

Abstract

Over the period 1997-2001, just under 500 Danes died each year in connection with traffic accidents. Three out of four of these were men. These premature deaths result in the loss of just under 14,000 life years for men and just under 5000 life years for women. Persons who die as a result of a traffic accident do so around 35 years prematurely. In 2004, traffic accidents resulted in 50,000 emergency department contacts, of which slightly more were accounted for by men than by women. In 2004, traffic accidents resulted in 7,000 hospital admissions, the majority of which were accounted for by men. Traffic accidents raise health service costs by DKK 198 million per year. Premature death and resultant saving in future health service consumption result in annual cost savings of DKK 54 million. The net health service costs related to traffic accidents are therefore DKK 144 million per year. Traffic accidents result in an annual production loss of DKK 1,693 million calculated using the human capital method and DKK 18 million calculated using the friction cost method. Due to the shorter lifetime the production loss is offset by a DKK 1186 million saving in future consumption.

Language: en