Department of Pathology, Stavanger University Hospital, Norway.
Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen, Norway.
Scand J Public Health. 2022 Jun;50(4):424-431. doi: 10.1177/1403494821997208. Epub 2021 Mar 8.
Forensic autopsies are important for the investigation of deaths with a legal or public-health interest, as well as being a source for cause-of-death statistics. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of forensic autopsies in Norway, with a special emphasis on geographical variation.
Data from the Norwegian Cause of Death Registry for the years 1996-2017 included 920,232 deaths and 37,398 forensic autopsies. We used logistic regression to identify factors that were associated with the proportion of forensic autopsies, grouped according to the registered cause of death. Explanatory variables were age and sex, place of death, police district, population size and urbanity level of the municipality and distance to the autopsy facility.
The proportion of deaths undergoing forensic autopsy was 4.1%, with the highest being homicides (96.6%) and the lowest being deaths from natural causes (1.7%). Variation between police districts was 0.9-7.8%, and the span persisted during the study period. The most important explanatory variables across the strata were place of death (there were few autopsies of deaths in health-care facilities), police district and age of the deceased. Distance to the autopsy facility, sex, population size and the level of urbanity had only a minor influence. The variation between police districts was not fully accounted for by the other investigated factors.
法医解剖对于调查具有法律或公共卫生利益的死亡事件以及死因统计数据的来源非常重要。本研究的目的是调查挪威法医解剖的使用情况，特别强调地域差异。
1996 年至 2017 年期间，挪威死因登记处的数据包括 920232 例死亡和 37398 例法医解剖。我们使用逻辑回归来确定与法医解剖比例相关的因素，这些因素根据登记的死因进行分组。解释变量为年龄和性别、死亡地点、警区、市的人口规模和城市化水平以及与解剖设施的距离。
接受法医解剖的死亡比例为 4.1%，其中凶杀案最高（96.6%），自然原因导致的死亡最低（1.7%）。警区之间的差异为 0.9-7.8%，并且在研究期间持续存在。各层最重要的解释变量是死亡地点（医疗机构死亡案例的解剖数量很少）、警区和死者年龄。距离解剖设施、性别、人口规模和城市化水平的影响较小。警区之间的差异不能完全由其他调查因素来解释。
