Monitoring Regional Accidental Injury Situation In Finland

Background Official Statistics of Finland (OSF) are a wide collection of statistics describing society’s development and state and must have common quality criteria, which are compatible with European Statistical System quality criteria. However, there is no OSF statistics focused solely on injuries, nor a database on the subject. The National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) produces information on Finland’s injury statistics. For monitoring regional injury situation, THL produces national injury reports, published since 2009, divided into rescue regions and health care districts. National injury reports are released once a year and are intended to improve regional and local safety planning. Methods Data is collected from the THL Injury Database which contains all deaths and hospital care periods for injuries and external causes of mortality from 1996 to 2013 (ICD-10 codes S00-T983 and V00-Y98). THL Injury Database’s data originates from Finland’s National Hospital Discharge register and Statistics Finland’s Causes of Death register. Standardised mortality/morbidity rate based on indirect age- and gender standardisation is used for comparing regional accidental injury deaths, hospital care periods, number of patients and hospital care days. Results Injuries leading to hospital care periods happens more often in Northern and Eastern Finland than in Southern and Western Finland. Most injuries occur in leisure and free time. Falls are the most common cause of death and reason for hospital care periods in the whole country. Regional differences are explained among other things by varying alcohol consumption, local care practices and population structure. Conclusions Regional national injury reports provide up-to-date information on municipalities’ injury situation. Injury reports guide local officials involved in safety planning to the right direction.