ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>Data on traffic accident from year 2000 to 2002 were collected and testified. Epidemiological study was carried out to find the main risk factors of traffic accident.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The spatial distribution was conducted by means of Geographic Information System (GIS) and were marked on Shanghai digitalized map with different layers by different colors.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Results showed that during 2000, 2001 and 2002, 69,669 , 68,894, and 47,088 traffic accident episodes occurred in Shanghai, resulting in 1747, 1724, 1557 deaths respectively with direct economic lost: 2.1, 2.4, 3.0 billion RMB. The main risk factors causing traffic accident deaths would include drinking alcohol before driving, fatigue and speeding. The leading causes of death were head injury and complex injury of body. GIS showed that there was a homocentric circle with more traffic accidents in downtown city, but more deaths in the urban city. Disease burden caused by traffic accident was very heavy.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>In Shanghai, traffic accident has great impact on social and economic issues thus should be controlled effectively. Focus should be layed on control of traffic accident in downtown area and to decrease the number of deaths related to traffic accident in the urban area.</p>