[Estimation of case fatality rate and incidence rate of traffic injury in Taiwan--analysis of 4,329 victims at a medical center].

Accidents remain the third leading cause of mortality in Taiwan, of which traffic injuries constitute the major part. In order to characterize traffic injuries and to estimate the annual traffic injury rate in Taiwan, we conducted an epidemiologic study of 4,329 consecutive traffic accident victims, managed at the Tri-Service General Hospital from January to December of 1990. Victims were interviewed for demographic data and types of accident using a brief questionnaire. The questions included injury site and Injury Severity Score (ISS); final diagnosis and outcome were obtained by review of medical records and by a telephone survey performed 4 months after discharge. The sex- and age-specific case fatality rates calculated from the data obtained in this study were used to divide the annual incidence of traffic mortality abstracted from the vital statistics of Taiwan (1990) and, thus, to obtain an annual frequency of traffic injury cases under certain assumptions. The results showed that more men than women were injured in all age groups. The highest frequency of traffic injuries was noted in patients ranging in age from 20 to 39 years. Up to 58.9% of the victims were motorcycle users, followed by pedestrians (19.5%) and automobile-users (16.0%). The case fatality rate was 2.5% for males and 1.7% for females. The estimated annual traffic incidence was about 330,000, and the total annual rate of traffic injuries in Taiwan was 1,627/100,000 (2,188/100,000 for men and 1,114/100,000 for women).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)