![]() Uganda therefore resides in the top range of countries with the highest death rates due to unsafe roads. By contrast, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates a 3.5 times higher number of fatalities with a total of 10,280 deaths and 27.4 fatalities per 100,000 population since eligible death registration data are not available for Uganda. According to official accounts of the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, the number of people killed per 100 crashes recorded in the Accident Severity Index (ASI) amounted to 18 in 2015 with a total number of 3224 road deaths in that year. Of those affected by RTC, 17.5% die and 74.5% are injured so severely that they subsequently require inpatient treatment. Uganda, which is a sub-Saharan low-income country in East Africa with a population of 44 million in 2019, an annual Gross Domestic Product growth of 2,9% in 2020 and a life expectancy of 63 years in 2018, registers up to 50 road traffic crashes each day with total of 18,426 affected according to statistics by the World Bank. The burden of non-fatal injuries and permanent disabilities due to trauma and RTC exceeds the number of deaths by approximately fifty times even though non-fatal injuries are investigated far less than deaths. In addition to deaths on the road, 50 million annual non-fatal RTI contribute to the global burden of disease with 23% of all global ‘Years lived with disability’ (YLD). Measures to reduce road accidents have positive effects with four low-income countries (LIC) recording a decrease in road traffic fatalities in 2010 and Uganda was not among them. As early as 2012, RTI headed the mortality ranking among the age group of 15 to 29 in LMIC even though total vehicle associated deaths stagnated globally. Without extensive efforts to tackle road traffic casualties, they are expected to rank at the fifth position of leading causes of death globally by 2030 with an ever increasing gap between poor and rich countries. Of the 1.2 million global RTC fatalities, 90% occurred in low-income and middle-income countries (LMIC) even though less than half of all vehicles were registered there. In developing countries, injuries caused by road traffic crashes (RTC) claimed more lives annually than the leading transmittable and infectious diseases Malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis combined in the early 2000′s. In August 2020, the United Nations Assembly rung in the second Decade of Action from 2021 to 2030 by reinstituting the goal to reduce RTI by 50% in the next 10 years. The importance of RTI was further affirmed by their inclusion into the health targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) launched in 2015: Until 2020, a 50% reduction in road traffic deaths and injuries is to be achieved. In 2010, the United Nations (UN) announced a Decade of Action for Road Safety to emphasize the burden of road traffic associated injuries (RTI) and fatalities globally. ![]() In addition to law enforcement and introduction of a Systems Thinking approach to road safety including infrastructural and educational concepts, the strengthening of trauma care and health resources is recommended. The identification of significant differences in road traffic crash and injury characteristics provides the opportunity for specific programmes to decrease the socio-economic and health burden of unsafe roads. The frequency of road traffic injuries was homogenous in the urban and rural hospitals investigated in this study interventions should therefore be intensified ubiquitously. Motorcycle users (49.6%) and pedestrians (33.7%) were identified as the most vulnerable groups in both urban and rural setting while mild injuries of extremities (61.6%) and the head/neck-region (42.0%) were registered most. The trauma in-hospital mortality was 4% while prevalence of traumatic injuries is 56.4%. According to the 1683 medical records reviewed, the mean age of trauma patients in the dataset under investigation was 30.8 years with 74% male. Injury severity scores were calculated and descriptive analysis was carried out while multivariate logistic regression was applied to assess significant covariates. Here, we used a cross-sectional study conducted by a retrospective medical record review from trauma cases admitted in 2016 to hospitals in rural and urban areas in Uganda. However, little is known about the differences in road traffic associated injuries between urban and rural areas and potential influence factors. Uganda shows a vast burden of non-fatal injuries and resides at the top range of countries with the highest death rates due to unsafe roads. ![]() In the ongoing Second Decade of Action for Road Safety, road traffic crashes pose a considerable threat especially in low-income countries.
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