Temporal and regional trends in fatal childhood injuries in Norway 1971-1989

The paper focuses on how mortality due to injuries among Norwegian children has varied over time and throughout the country over the last two decades. The temporal trends are compared to those of the other Nordic countries. Individual data on date of birth and death, county of residence at death, sex and cause of death were obtained from the Norwegian Death Registry on all children aged 0-14 who died during the time-span 1971-1989. Denominators were the number of persons alive in the corresponding age, year, sex and county groups. There has been a decline in fatal injuries from 25 to 9 deaths per 100,000 person-years in, respectively, 1971 and 1989. The decline is less distinct in the late 1980's. The rate of fatal injuries have throughout the period been lowest in the county of Oslo and highest in Northern Norway with fatal injury rates in Finnmark 3 times that of Oslo. The declining time trend was present for all types of injuries except bicyclists and passengers, but with the sharpest decline for pedestrians and drowning injuries. The regional variation was strongest for drowning and showed a different profile from the overall pattern for bicyclists, passengers and falling injuries. The incidence of fatal injuries in Norway is comparable to those of Denmark, Finland and Iceland, but considerably higher than in Sweden. In all Nordic countries the rates have declined to about one third from 1971 to 1988.