LAUSR

Background Number of deaths due to road traffic injuries (RTI) is increasing in the urban areas due to rapid urbanization in the low- and middle-income countries including Bangladesh. However, the real burden of RTI among the urban population has neither been recognized nor been addressed properly by the policy makers in Bangladesh due to lack of reliable data. Objective The study aimed at exploring the epidemiological burden of RTI among urban population in Bangladesh. Methodology A nationwide cross-sectional survey was conducted between March and June 2016. Multi-stage cluster sampling was used to select required number of households. It uses a complex sampling strategy based on probability-proportional-to-size (PPS) methodologies with separate urban and rural samples. After cleaning and validation, data from 2 99 216 household residents including 1 06 233 urban residents was available for analysis. 64 data collectors and 16 supervisors were engaged in the study. Data was collected on tablets using a custom data entry program developed for the survey. Once data was transferred to the server, the data was validated, and exported to SPSS v21 for analysis. Results RTI (40.5%) was the leading cause of injury mortality among urban population followed by falls (21.4%) and drowning (19.0%) with a rate of 16.0/100,000 population. More than 70% of all deaths occur on the way to hospital. Almost two-thirds (64.7%) of all died on the urban roads are the people in the most productive age group (25–59 years) and pedestrians (23.5%) were the most vulnerable group. Around 60% of RTI victims received treatment from district level hospitals. Male involvement in road traffic injuries were significantly higher than female in the urban areas. Conclusion Findings of this study could an information base for reducing the toll of RTI among the urban population in a comprehensive way considering their involvement and health care seeking pattern.