Road Traffic Accidents in Yazd Province, Iran: A Longitudinal Study (2012–2016)

Background and Objectives: The victims of road traffic accidents (RTAs) are mainly young. Hence, reduction of mortality from RTAs should be considered as one of the most important priorities for health‑care systems. This study aimed at assessing the mortality rate of RTAs in Yazd Province during 2012–2016. Subjects and Methods: In this descriptive‑analytic study, data were obtained from data collection forms of forensic medicine organizations in Yazd. The general equation estimation method was used to compare the number of accidents by distinguishing independent variables. To investigate the trend, a decomposition method was used to analyze a time series with a trend and a seasonal pattern in the Minitab software. Results: In this study, 1437 people who died due to RTAs during 2012–2016 were studied. The number of deaths in men was 1076 (75%), almost three times of women. The risk of death from RTAs in married couples, the main road, heavy car driving and driving out‑of‑town were 1.6, 3.6, 1.9, and 3.2, respectively. An indirect and significant linear relationship was found between the number of accidents and time during 2012–2016. Conclusion: According to the results of this study, the most cases of events are in the age group of 20–30 years. Therefore, prevention should be done for this age group. Furthermore, findings of this study show that decreasing in fatal RTA can be attributed to the exacerbation of traffic regulations and its implementation.