Quantifying the Underestimated Burden of Road Traffic Mortality in Mexico: A Comparison of Three Approaches

Figures & data

Table I Categories of corrections to reclassify nonspecifically coded road traffic deaths in Mexico, 1999 to 2009

Category	Existing code examples	Nonspecific codes	Adjustment
Total number of deaths	Communicable diseases	All R codes	Correction 1
	Noncommunicable diseases
	Injuries
Total number of injury deaths	Intentional injuries	Y32–34	Correction 2
	Unintentional injuries
Total number of unintentional injury deaths	Poisoning	X59	Correction 3
	Smoke
	Transport
	Etc.
Total number of transport injury deaths	Pedestrian	V87, V892, V899	Correction 4
	Motorcycle
	Etc.

Figure 1 Unadjusted and adjusted road traffic mortality rate per 100,000 population in Mexico 1999 to 2009 utilizing 3 ICD-10 code correction methods.

Table II Range of underestimation of road traffic injury mortality figures using 3 different approaches by year, Mexico 1999 to 2009

Approach	Maximum (%)	Minimum (%)	Average (%)
Proportional method	44.63	29.46	34.17
Multiple imputation method	37.87	23.90	30.09
Regression method	37.88	17.89	27.18

Figure 2 Adjusted proportional burden of road traffic deaths in Mexico, 1999 to 2009: (A) percentage of total deaths due to injuries; (B) percentage of total injury deaths that are from unintentional injuries; (C) percentage of unintentional injury deaths that are due to transport; and (D) percentage of transport injuries that are road traffic deaths.

Figure 3 Road traffic mortality rate by age group in Mexico, adjusted using the proportional approach, 1999 to 2009.

Table III Average road traffic mortality rates (per 100,000), unadjusted vs. adjusted using the proportional approach, by sex and road user category, Mexico, 1999 to 2009

	Male		Female
Road user category	Unadjusted	Adjusted	Unadjusted	Adjusted
Pedestrians	8.0	16.1	2.3	4.5
Bicyclists	0.5	0.6	0.0	0.1
Motorcyclists	0.6	1.3	0.1	0.2
Car passengers	5.3	10.6	1.6	3.1
Other	9.5	3.3	2.6	0.9
All road traffic injuries	23.8	31.9	6.5	8.7