Child mortality in Croatia from 1995 to 2019 due to accidents

Accidents in the broadest sense, which include intentional and unintentional events, are the leading cause of death after the first year of life in all developed countries, including Croatia. These are avoidable/preventable events, so their high frequency mortality and other serious consequences is all the more tragic. Objective Analysis of data on child mortality caused by accidents in the Republic of Croatia over the period of 25 years. Material and Methods Data from the Central Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Croatia processed by the Croatian Institute for public Health on mortality in children aged 0 to 19 in the period from 1995 to 2019 were analyzed. The following diagnoses according to the X International Classification of Diseases and Injuries are included ; (I) Accidents-traffic accidents V01-V99, drowning W65-W74, suffocation W75- W84, falls W00-W19, burns X00-X09, X10-X19, poisoning X40-X49, weapons/explosive accidents W32-W40 ; (II) suicides – X60-X84 ; (III) murders X85-Y09. Absolute case numbers were analyzed by gender and age groups. Results 3343 children aged 0-19 lost lives due to accidents – injuries in the period of 25 years in the Republic of Croatia. Over the years, a downward trend in mortality has been observed. The most common single causes of death were traffic accidents, 1643 (49%) suicides 594 (18%) and drowning 261 (8%). Other common causes were present in smaller numbers and proportions: poisonings, suffocations, falls. Given the highest incidence, we analysed traffic accidents and suicides by age and gender. Traffic accidents were most prevalent in the 15- 19 age group among boys. Suicides were also most common in the same age and gender group. In all age groups and according to all analyzed causes, the number of deaths is higher in boys/young men than girls. In the age group of 0-1 year the most common cause of death of all the causes was suffocation. Conclusion positive trends in reducing the number of deaths of children due to accidents are encouraging, but Croatia still lags significantly behind the most developed countries. The data from the European Union the most common cause of death in the age group 0-14 are injuries, traffic accidents, murders and suicides, which is not in accordance with our results. The EU countries Austria, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden record the lowest rate of traffic accidents. Malta, Italy, Spain and England are the countries with the lowest number of recorded suicides. Unfortunately, Croatia is among the countries from the top of the list. Effective injury prevention in childhood may require different combinations of prevention policies, depending on epidemiological characteristics, such as the development of injury supervision and public education on injury awareness and prevention