Epidemiology of Road Traffic Injuries among Elderly People; A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

OBJECTIVE

To systematically review the epidemiological patterns and interventions for prevention of road traffic injuries (RTIs) among elderly.

METHODS

Searching keywords including: accident, trauma, road injury, road traffic injuries, aging, old, elder, strategy, intervention, road traffic crash prevention and traffic accident in databases including, Google scholar, SID, IranMedex, PubMed and Scopus. English and non-Persian articles, articles presented in congresses, articles that considered elderly people to have age under than 60 years were excluded. The reporting quality of articles was assessed by two experts using Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) check list.

RESULTS

RTIs compromised 23.6% of total injuries among elderly. The most frequent injuries were about car accidents (51.4%). Pedestrian injuries composed 48.1% of the RTIs. Head and neck (32.1%) were most injured body parts. There was a significant difference between elderly and non-elderly people in terms of RTIs associated mortality (Odd=2.57 [1.2-5.4 CI 95%]). Overall 25 main domains of intervention and 73 subordinate domains were extracted in five categories (human, road and environment, tools and cars, medical, legal and political issues).

CONCLUSION

According to the notable prevalence and fatality of RTIs, lack of sufficient studies and valid evidence of the present study can provide an appropriate evidence for better interventions for RTIs prevention among elderly.