Surveillance of injury-related deaths: medicolegal autopsy rates and trends in Finland.
Medicolegal autopsies are a vital tool for obtaining reliable injury mortality data. In Finland, medicolegal autopsies have increased from 13.6% of all deaths in 1970 to 23.8% in 2004. In fact, medicolegal autopsies are performed in 87.2% of all unintentional injury deaths, 98.3% of homicides and 99.5% of suicides. Finland has exceedingly high medicolegal autopsy rates compared with other countries. Autopsy rates should be appropriately considered when performing international comparisons of injury-related deaths.
National Public Health Institute, Injury Prevention Unit, Helsinki, Finland. philippe.lunetta@helsinki.fi
Philippe
P
Lunetta
Anne
A
Lounamaa
Sanna
S
Sihvonen
D001344:Autopsy / Q000379:methods; D002423:Cause of Death / Q000639:trends; D003334:Coroners and Medical Examiners / Q000592:standards; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D005554:Forensic Medicine / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000401:mortality*