[Time distribution characteristics of traffic injury in different age groups in Beijing from 2004 to 2008].
OBJECTIVE
To analyze the time distributions of traffic accidents happening in different age groups in Beijing from 2004 to 2008, and to provide  information on the prevention and rescue.


METHODS
The traffic injury cases recorded by Beijing Emergency Medical Center from 2004 to 2008 were  analyzed, and the data were separated by age:  the youth (0-17 years old), the adult (18-64 years old) and the senior adult (above 65 years old). The  constituent ratios of hours and months were calculated to describe the states and time distributions of all the cases.


RESULTS
The high peaks of  accidents for the youth group occurred in the periods 7:00 to 8:00 (6.77%, 39) and 16:00 to 18:00 (10.38%, 60;10.73%, 62), and for the senior adult  group appeared in the period 9:00 to 11:00 (11.19%, 151; 11.04%, 149). The adult group showed a stable trend during the period 8:00 to 24:00. The  amount of traffic injury happening in these three groups had the same status monthly, which turned out that most traffic accidents happened in October for all  the groups (12.11%, 70; 10.38%, 1 257; 12.30%, 166), and February had the smallest number (4.15%, 24; 5.28%, 640; 5.26%, 71).


CONCLUSIONS
The time  distributions of traffic injury within these three groups do not show the same situation daily but do monthly. The emergency treatment team and traffic control  personnel should pay attention to this and have special protocol for different cases to increase the efficiency of the prehospital rescue.
Department of Trauma and Orthopaedics, Peking University People's Hospital, Beijing 100044, China.
Jian-ping
JP
Peng
Yan-hua
YH
Wang
Zhen-jun
ZJ
Zhang
Jing
J
Wang
Pei-xun
PX
Zhang
Tian-bing
TB
Wang
Bao-guo
BG
Jiang
D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D002947:Cities; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012621:Seasons; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult