Disparities in injury mortality patterns: Comparing Uganda and the United States

Objective: About 90% of injury deaths worldwide occur in developing countries. However, there is very little data on injury epidemiology from these settings. This study aims to describe injury mortality patterns seen in urban and compare them to patterns seen in the. 

Methods: As a cross-sectional study, we compiled a database of all deaths recorded by the City and Mulago Hospital Mortuaries and the Uganda Ministry of Health Post-Mortem Reports in the city of, from July to December 2007. This was analyzed and compared with 2007 US data from the CDC.

Findings: 3503 deaths were recorded for this city of 1.2 million people. 22% were trauma deaths, in contrast, in the, 7% of all deaths in 2004 were due to injury (p<0.001). The crude and the age-adjusted injury death rates in were 6.3 and 5.9, per 10,000, respectively. The odds of dying of injury in were 3.7 times that of the (95% CI 3.4-4.0, p<0.0001). Cross country differences in adult death rates were statistically significant (p=0.004) whereas child and overall injury death rates were not. The mean age of injury death was lower in (29 vs. 47 years, p=0.005). The most common mechanisms of injury death in were road traffic crashes (49%, n=370), assaults (17%, n=130) and burns (9%, n=71) compared to road traffic crashes, firearms and poisoning in the. Of the body regions injured most frequently, head/neck was reported in 69% of injury deaths in vs. 28% in the (p<0.0001).

Significance: Urban injury mortality is significantly higher in compared to the. Young adults face the greatest mortality risk. Context-specific interventions and economic studies of the burden of injury are urgently needed. This is a call for stronger injury prevention and control policies.