Background

Unintentional injury is one of the main causes of death and is one of the more common causes of emergency hospital admissions in children. Unintentional injuries are also a common cause for emergency hospital admissions and deaths among adults.  However, total numbers of unintentional injuries for both deaths and emergency hospital admissions has been decreasing over the years.  For example, the number of deaths as a result of an unintentional injury decreased from 1,996 in 1985 to 1,288 in 2006 and the number admitted as an emergency to hospital decreased from 66,088 in 1999/2000 to 58,763 in 2006/2007.

The term "unintentional injury" is preferred to "accidents" as the latter implies events are inevitable and unavoidable whereas a high proportion of these incidents are now regarded as being preventable.  Unintentional injuries can occur in any age group, but children and the elderly are more vulnerable.

Unintentional injuries may occur at home, at work, in sport and recreation, on the roads and at school.  Information for children focuses on four main age groups where the type of injury reflects the child's state of development, changing perception of danger, types of activity and levels of responsibility.  Information for adults focus on five age groups with those aged 75+ being separated, as they are more susceptible to injury.  In both children and adults, some of the main types of unintentional injuries are road traffic accidents (RTAs), poisoning, falls, burns & scalds, drowning, choking, exposure to animate/inanimate mechanical forces , assault, non RTA transport accidents, over exertion and accidental exposure to unspecified factors.  Information is presented for children (aged under 15) and adults (aged 15 years and over).

Approximately 1 in 5 emergency hospital admissions in children is as a result of an unintentional injury.  For adults, unintentional injuries account for roughly 1 in 7 emergency hospital admissions.  In 2006 approximately 1 in 13 childhood deaths are due to an unintentional injury, slightly less that the average between 2000 and 2005 of 1 in 12 deaths.    In adults, deaths due to an unintentional injury account for approximately 1 in 43 deaths.

In 2006/07, there were 349,490 patients admitted to hospital as an emergency.  Out of these patients, approximately 16% (55,256) were admitted as a result of an unintentional injury.  The number of patients who were discharged dead from hospital after being admitted as an emergency following an unintentional injury is 556, approximately 1% of those admitted.  However, these only account for a small proportion of all those who died following an emergency admission to hospital (2.1%).

To see how Scotland compares with other countries, the number of deaths per 100,000 population can be calculated for each year and standardised to the European Standard Population; this allows the rate to be compared between populations with different age structure.  Based on this standardisation, we can say that if Scotland's population was structured in the same way as the European Standard Population, then we would expect 21 deaths per 100,000 population due to unintentional injury in 2004.

The graph below shows how this compares with a selection of other European countries as well as the EU average.  Data from additional countries, and time periods, as well as a comparison of various subsets of unintentional injuries can be found here .

 Please click on the above chart for relating tables and notes.

Please note: data is presented for 2004 as this is the most recent year for which there is data from a range of countries. Also, the definition of unintentional injury used here is slightly different from that used elsewhere in this section, which was necessary to create a valid comparison between countries.

Good data on injuries are essential for planning prevention programmes. The data presented here demonstrate the number of deaths, hospital admissions and types of injuries. However, much less information is available on the severity of injuries and their cause.

The annual report of the Chief Medical Officer has highlighted ways in which injury prevention could be improved by:

• better co-ordination of prevention at national and local level.
• better targeting of preventive measures.
• a more effective framework for taking action on the data we already have.

As well as the above report, the Towards a Healthier Scotland White Paper emphasises the need for more to be done at a strategic level to provide direction, and to coordinate efforts to reduce unintentional injury.  In order to improve the quality of data on unintentional injury, ISD has undertaken work with colleagues from local government and the voluntary sector to agree on a common data set for injury.  The data items in this dataset are based on internationally recognised standards.  This is part of a wider programme on National Clinical Datasets Developments and information is available on the SHOW website (click here ). 

Analysis on Unintentional Injuries for children and adults is available by clicking on the links below.

Unintentional Injuries in Children

Unintentional Injuries in Adults