Utility of Brazilian Hospital Information System as a tool for monitoring morbidity by traffic accident in Brazil, 2002-2011

Objectives: A study about the morbidity due to traffic accidents in Brazil is needed:

• Due the magnitude of the traffic accidents
• Information about traffic accidents can be found in various sources
• Other previous studies only evaluate mortality

Conclusions:

• Among the traffic accidents, the road traffic accidents were responsible for the most number of hospitalizations in the period.
• There was an increase in the number of admissions where the cause of hospitalizations were non-specific traffic accidents.
• Among the road traffic accidents, those where the victim is a motorcyclist presented higher proportions, with an increase over the years.
• Most hospitalizations by road traffic accidents occurred among male individuals.
• Most part of the individuals hospitalized due to road traffic accidents left the hospital after discharge.
• We don’t know if the number of deaths is under or overestimated because we didn’t link the data to the data of the information system of mortality.
• Dataset was found to be: simple, flexible, good data quality, good acceptability, and useful.

Recommendations:

• Reinforce the need to fill up the variable race/color and ethnicity.
• Increase the use of the system for epidemiological studies of road traffic accidents.
• Disseminate the system among the offices and institutions that work and research road traffic accidents.
• Encourage the use of the SIH by municipal and state levels in order to recognize the magnitude of the problem and implement prevention.