Epidemiological study on the trend of accidental deaths among children under five in Beijing, during 2003-2012 / 中华流行病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the trend of accidental death among children under 5 years of age in Beijing.Methods Cases of death in children under 5 years old in Beijing,during 2003-2012 were collected,to analyze the strength and trends of accidental death,main causes of accident and its epidemiological features. Results The overall accidental death was 8.47% of all death among children under 5 years old in Beijing during 2003-2012. During these 10 years,data showed a downward trend on the mortality rates on injuries(P<0.05),especially on drowning,in 1-4 year old and rural children under five years of age. In 2012,the accidental death rate of children under five was 6.37/105. The 5 main causes of accidental deaths were suffocation,traffic accident,falling,poisoning and drowning,in order of size. The main causes of death were suffocation in the 0-1 year group, suffocation and traffic accident in the 1-2 year group and traffic accident in the 3-4 year group. The proportion of deaths due to traffic accident increased gradually with age. Area distribution showed that accidental deaths mainly happened in rural area(52.19%),with two main types as traffic accident and suffocation. Conclusion The reduction of accidental death rate among children under 5 years old in Beijing mainly was caused by the decline of accident mortality in 1-4 year old and children in the rural areas. Our data suggested that the focus in reducing the accidental death rate among children under 5 years old in Beijing should target on the prevention of infant suffocation and traffic accidents among the 1-4 year old,with rural areas in particular.