Survey Demographic Characteristics of Elderly Deaths due to Road Traffic Injuries Died From Traffic Accidents in Kurdistan Province During 2003-2009

Traffic injuries are noticeable events in most countries. In Iran, traffic injuries After heart disease are the second cause of death and first cause of wasting life. The elderly are the most vulnerable people in traffic injuries who among them, death and disability are high. Due to the increased number elderly in the country, the aim of this study was to evaluate demographic characteristics of the elderly died of traffic accidents over a period of seven years (2003-2009) in Kurdistan province of Iran. In this cross sectional study (descriptive- analytical), by census method, all cases of dead elderly were studied. Then, by using a check list for demographic characteristics, location, time of the incident and the cause of death were collected and data was analyzed by spss software finally. Among 509 dead elderly, more than three fours (77.2%) were male. Most of fatal accidents were head trauma (54.3%) and half of them occurred before transferring to the hospital (54.1%). There was a significant relationship between sex of victims and their status of in accident so that all older drivers who died were men (p<0.05). According to the high rate of death among men, older pedestrians and pre-hospitalize phase, conducted training programs for prevention in this age group is important.