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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Disaster and Emergency Medicine
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1468505
This article is part of the Research Topic A Holistic Approach to Safety Practices for Transportation Systems and Road Users View all articles

The epidemiology of road traffic injuries in the Republic of Serbia: a study based on hospital

Provisionally accepted
Smiljana Rajcevic Smiljana Rajcevic 1*Mirjana Štrbac Mirjana Štrbac 1Dragoslav Kukić Dragoslav Kukić 2Marija Marković Marija Marković 3Ivan Ivanović Ivan Ivanović 4Radmila Petrović Radmila Petrović 5Ivana Radic Ivana Radic 1
  • 1 Institute of Public Health of Vojvodina, Novi Sad, Serbia
  • 2 Faculty of Science, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia
  • 3 City Public Health Institute, Belgrade, Serbia
  • 4 Dr Milan Jovanovic Batut Institute of Public Health of Serbia, Kragujevac, Serbia
  • 5 Clinical Center of Vojvodina, Novi Sad, Serbia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: Road traffic injuries (RTI) are the leading cause of death and severe disability among individuals under the age of 40, posing a significant public health challenge globally. This manuscript highlights key aspects of the epidemiology of injuries in RTC in Serbia, based on hospitalization report data.The main aim of this study was to analyse the epidemiological characteristics of road traffic injuries (RTI) based on hospital data over a five-year period in Serbia.The data for this study were obtained from the Hospitalization Report, which is part of the hospitalization database maintained by the Institute for Public Health of Serbia "Dr Milan Jovanović Batut," covering the period from January 2015 to December 2019. The research included data from the Hospitalization Reports of 66 healthcare institutions across Serbia... Results: During the study period, a total of 15,028 patients with road traffic injuries were admitted to healthcare institutions in Serbia. During the five-year period, the crude RTI incidence rate increased every year, from 39.0/100, 000 in 2015 to 43.7/100,000 in 2019. Elderly people aged 65 and over were particularly vulnerable as bicyclists and pedestrians (31.3%, 27.7%, respectively). The Vojvodina region experienced a higher incidence of injuries among bicyclists compared and car accidents were most frequent in Central Serbia than in the other regions of Serbia. Craniocerebral injuries were the most common type of road traffic injury, accounting for 37.8% of cases. Significant differences in the types of injuries were observed based on age (χ² = 649.859; p < 0.001) and gender (χ² = 31.442; p < 0.001).Understanding the epidemiological profile of road users involved in accidents is essential for monitoring and controlling specific risk factors. Our results highlight the need for enhanced traffic safety measures at the local level.

    Keywords: road traffic injuries, Road traffic crash, Hospitalization, hospital report, Serbia

    Received: 22 Jul 2024; Accepted: 16 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Rajcevic, Štrbac, Kukić, Marković, Ivanović, Petrović and Radic. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Smiljana Rajcevic, Institute of Public Health of Vojvodina, Novi Sad, Serbia

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