Burden of Road Traffic Injuries in Tanzania

One-Year Prospective Study of Consecutive Patients in 13 Multilevel Health Facilities

Abstract

Road traffic injuries (RTIs) pose a severe public health crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and specifically in Tanzania, where the mortality due to RTIs is nearly double the global rate. There is a paucity of RTI data in Tanzania to inform evidence-based interventions to reduce the incidence and improve care outcomes. A trauma registry was implemented at 13 health facilities of diverse administrative levels in Tanzania.

In this study, we characterize the burden of RTIs seen at these health facilities. This was a one-year prospective descriptive study utilizing trauma registry data from 13 multilevel health facilities in Tanzania from 1 October 2019 to 30 September 2020. We provide descriptive statistics on patient demographics; location; share of injury; nature, type, and circumstances of RTI; injury severity; disposition; and outcomes.

This work is part of the Impact Evaluation of Emergency Response and Post Crash Care in Tanzania project

Citation

Hendry R. Sawe, Sveta Milusheva, Kevin Croke, Saahil Karpe, Meyhar Mohammed and Juma A. Mfinanga (2021) Burden of Road Traffic Injuries in Tanzania: One-Year Prospective Study of Consecutive Patients in 13 Multilevel Health Facilities. Emergency Medicine International, Volume 2021, Article ID 4272781, 9 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/4272781

Burden of Road Traffic Injuries in Tanzania: One-Year Prospective Study of Consecutive Patients in 13 Multilevel Health Facilities

Published 10 November 2021