Post-lockdown burden of road injury involving hospitalisation in Victoria, Australia: A statewide, population-based time series analysis

Objectives

Ever since COVID-19, short-term changes in transport injury patterns have been observed. The aim is to examine both the initial and the enduring impact of government lockdown and the pandemic on road injuries requiring hospitalisation and road fatalities.

Methods

Time series analysis of Transport Accident Commission (TAC) claims involving hospitalisation and fatalities in Victoria, Australia, from July 2016 to May 2023, including lockdown (March 2020 to October 2020) and post-lockdown (November 2020 onwards).

Results

A total of 46 450 TAC claims were included. Average claims during the pre-pandemic period were 652/month. Lockdown restrictions were associated with a statistically significant fall in monthly claims (−255, 95% confidence interval [CI] = −315 to −194, P < 0.01). This was consistent across road users, days of the week, hours of the day, injury severity, sex and central versus rural locations. The post-lockdown period had a statistically significant reduction in monthly claims to 76% (95% CI = 67–84) of pre-pandemic levels (−158, 95% CI = −213 to −102, P <0.01). This was consistent across all subgroups except bicyclist injuries, which remained constant (−8, 95% CI = −16 to 0, P = 0.05). There was a significant upward trend in the fatality-to-claim ratio post-lockdown (0.001, 95% CI = 0–0.001, P <0.01).

Conclusion

Road injury requiring hospitalisation decreased significantly during governmental lockdown and has returned to three-quarters of pre-pandemic levels (except bicyclist injuries that have remained constant), but there is an increasingly disproportionate number of fatalities. This represents a new baseline of injury burden for EDs and hospitals that manage trauma patients.