Global, regional, and national burden of injuries, and burden attributable to injuries risk factors, 1990 to 2019: results from the Global Burden of Disease study 2019

Objectives

In this study, the trends and current situation of the injury burden as well as attributable burden to injury risk factors at global, regional, and national levels based on the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 are presented.

Study design

To assess the attributable burden of injury risk factors, the data of interest on data sources were retrieved from the Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx) and analyzed.

Methods

Cause-specific death from injuries was estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model in the GBD 2019. The burden attributable to each injury risk factor was incorporated in the population attributable fraction to estimate the total attributable deaths and disability-adjusted life years. The Socio-demographic Index (SDI) was used to evaluate countries’ developmental status.

Results

Globally, there were 713.9 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI]: 663.8 to 766.9) injuries incidence and 4.3 million (UI: 3.9 to 4.6) deaths caused by injuries in 2019. There was an inverse relationship between age-standardized disability-adjusted life year rate and SDI quintiles in 2019. Overall, low bone mineral density was the leading risk factor of injury deaths in 2019, with a contribution of 10.5% (UI: 9.0 to 11.6) of total injuries and age-standardized deaths, followed by occupational risks (7.0% [UI: 6.3–7.9]) and alcohol use (6.8% [UI: 5.2 to 8.5]).

Conclusion

Various risks were responsible for the imposed burden of injuries. This study highlighted the small but persistent share of injuries in the global burden of diseases and injuries to provide beneficial data to produce proper policies to reach an effective global injury prevention plan.