Analysis of Provincial Mortalities Among Bus/Minibus Users Over Twelve Years, East Azerbaijan, Iran

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the epidemiological features of bus/minibus users' road traffic injury mortalities during 2006-2017, in the East Azerbaijan province of Iran. Methods: All 245 bus/minibus users' mortalities, registered in the forensic medicine database, were analyzed by STATA 13 statistical software package. Results: The majority of victims (mean age: 41.5±18.6 years) were men (70%), adults (79.18%), illiterate (22.4%) and self-employed (25.3%). Passersby and police played an almost null role in transporting victims since 2014. A decreasing trend of bus/minibus users' fatalities was observed over the study time. Head-neck-face trauma was more common among those who died prior to hospitalization. Rollover was significantly prevalent among bus users and falling among minibus users. Lorries, vans, and trailers as crash counterpart vehicles caused 59% of deceases, excluding the cases when no other vehicle was engaged. Victims were more likely to die at the hospital when crashes happened in the city's inner roads (OR: 4.17; 95%CI:1.7-9.9). The elderly were 2.78 times more likely to die at the hospital when compared to the other age groups (95%CI: 1.23-6.26). Conclusions: To identify a target group for interventions on traffic-related knowledge, attitude and behaviors, male adults, illiterate and self-employed bus/minibus users could be of priority. Type vehicles involved in the crash should be considered as an important factor affect on crash fatalities. Further investigations are needed in this regard in the future.