title: Childhood and adult mortality from unintentional falls in India.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To estimate fall-related mortality by type of fall in India.
  
  
  METHODS
  The authors analysed unintentional injury data from the ongoing Million Death Study from 2001-2003 using verbal autopsy and coding of all deaths in accordance with the International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems, tenth revision, in a nationally representative sample of 1.1 million homes throughout the country.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Falls accounted for 25% (2003/8023) of all deaths from unintentional injury and were the second leading cause of such deaths. An estimated 160,000 fall-related deaths occurred in India in 2005; of these, nearly 20,000 were in children aged 0-14 years. The unintentional-fall-related mortality rate (MR) per 100,000 population was 14.5 (99% confidence interval, CI: 13.7-15.4). Rates were similar for males and females at 14.9 (99% CI: 13.7-16.0) and 14.2 (99% CI: 13.1-15.4) per 100,000 population, respectively. People aged 70 years or older had the highest mortality rate from unintentional falls (MR: 271.2; 99% CI: 249.0-293.5), and the rate was higher among women (MR: 281; 99% CI: 249.7-311.3). Falls on the same level were the most common among older adults, whereas falls from heights were more common in younger age groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In India, unintentional falls are a major public health problem that disproportionately affects older women and children. The contexts in which these falls occur and the resulting morbidity and disability need to be better understood. In India there is an urgent need to develop, test and implement interventions aimed at preventing falls.
authors.affiliation: The George Institute for Global Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Jagnoor
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jagnoor
authors.forename: Wilson
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Suraweera
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Keay
authors.forename: Rebecca Q
authors.initials: RQ
authors.lastname: Ivers
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Thakur
authors.forename: Gopalkrishna
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gururaj
authors.forename: Prabhat
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jha
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000401:mortality* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002423:Cause of Death; D002648:Child; D046688:Child Mortality / Q000639:trends; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends*; D011159:Population Surveillance; D011634:Public Health / Q000639:trends; D018570:Risk Assessment; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D055815:Young Adult
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