EPIDEMIOLOGICAL PATTERNS OF TRANSPORT ACCIDENT MORTALITY IN THAILAND.

This study aimed to explore patterns of transport accident mortality in Thailand between 2004 and 2009. Vital Registration (VR) data were obtained from the Thai Ministry of Public Health and corrected causes of death were derived from Verbal Autopsy (VA) data collected in 2005. A total of 136,164 deaths were analyzed. Poisson regression was used for identifying mortality patterns with respect to gender-age groups and province-year groups. Regression coefficients were used to classify mortality trends for the 76 provinces. The estimated number of transport accident deaths was 2.2 times higher than VR records. The mean estimated transport accident mortality rate was 34.5 per 100,000 population. The estimated transport accident mortality rates were highest among males aged 20-29 years and in the central region, lower northern region and Nakhon Ratchasima Province in the northeastern region. The patterns of transport accident mortality rates were separated into nine groups. Increasing trends were found in three provinces in the northern region, four provinces in the central and eastern regions and five provinces in the southern region. Nine models developed for these nine groups may be helpful for estimating future transport accident mortality rates in Thailand and developing appropriate responses.