Trends in injury mortality among adolescents in Taiwan, 1965-94

Objectives - To describe trends in injury mortality among adolescents in Taiwan for prioritising preventive interventions. Methods - Adolescent injury mortality data for Taiwan were derived from official publications of vital statistics from 1965 to 1994 to determine trends by sex and cause of death. Simple linear regression was used to test the trends. Results - The number of deaths due to injury among adolescents aged 10-19 years in Taiwan increased from 983 in 1965 to 1783 in 1994, an 81% increase. The injury mortality rate increased 42%, from 32.2 per 100 000 in 1965 to 45.6 per 100 000 in 1994. The proportion of injury deaths also increased, from 45.3% in 1965 to 72.8% in 1994. The trends in mortality from motor vehicle injury (MVI) among four demographic groups were all significantly positive (p<0.001). The proportion of deaths due to MVI among injury was 14% in 1965 and increased to 63% in 1994. Conclusions - The increase in injury mortality rates among adolescents over the past three decades appears to be due largely to the increase in MVI mortality rates with males aged 15-19 years accounting for most of this increase. Priorities for adolescents in Taiwan are MVI (especially motorcyclists) and drownings.