Violence and injury mortality in the Cape Town metropole

To describe accurately the violence and injury mortality in a South African city and demonstrate the utility of secondary data sources to identify injury control priorities.

Cross-sectional analysis of medicolegal laboratory (state mortuary), forensic and police data.

Metropolitan Cape Town, 1994.

Non-natural causes (deaths due to homicide, suicide, accidents and undetermined causes) accounted for almost 4000 deaths, which comprised approximately 30% of all-cause mortality during 1994. The five main violence and injury mortality categories were: homicide (1789 cases; 46% of all non-natural mortality), transport accidents (1130 cases; 29% of all non-natural mortality), fire (295 deaths; 8% of all non-natural mortality), suicide (291 deaths; 7% of all non-natural mortality) and drowning (96 cases; 2% of all non-natural mortality).

Priority issues in injury control include the increasing homicidal and suicidal use of firearms, road and rail commuter injury and the spatial distribution of injury. Surveillance, based on non-natural mortality, should be included in local, regional and national health information systems.