Ferðsluóhapp sum almannafyribrigdi (sosialt fyribrigdi) : Ein epidemiologisk kanning

Abstract

The study is a prospective epidemiological study including patients killed or injured in road traffic accidents, who were hospitalized or treated as out-patients at the Department of Surgery, Landssjúkrahúsið, Tórshavn, during 1978. 

The first aim was to demonstrate the presence or absence of association between traffic injuries and well defined variables, such as sex, age aiui others. As long as the general picture of the road traffic in an area is not known, it is impossible to estimate degrees of risk. However, it is possible to point out certain categories with high number of casualties.

Although the predominance of males is probably mainly due to higher exposure, there are indications that young males have worse accident records. This group must be a suitable target group for information and education and possibly a change of attitude in this group is required to ímprove the situation.

It is also important to organize road traffic so that different categories of traffic are not intermingled. The second aim of the study was to calculate the cost of society from traffic injuries. For the country as a whole, the annual cost was calculated
to about 14 mill. DKr.