title: Elderly patients attended in emergency health services in Brazil: a study for victims of falls and traffic accidents.
abstract: The article aims to describe the profile of elderly victims of falls and traffic accidents from the data of the Surveillance Survey of Violence and Accidents (VIVA). The VIVA Survey was conducted in the emergency health-services of the Unified Health System in the capitals of Brazil in 2011. The sample of elderly by type of accident was subjected to the two-step cluster procedure. Of the 2463 elderly persons in question, 79.8% suffered falls and 20.2% were the victims of traffic accidents. The 1812 elderly who fell were grouped together into 4 clusters: Cluster 1, in which all had disabilities; Cluster 2, all were non-white and falls took place in the home; Cluster 3, younger and active seniors; and Cluster 4, with a higher proportion of seniors 80 years old or above who were white. Among cases of traffic accidents, 446 seniors were grouped into two clusters: Cluster 1 of younger elderly, drivers or passengers; Cluster 2, with higher age seniors, mostly pedestrians. The main victims of falls were women with low schooling and unemployed; traffic accident victims were mostly younger and male. Complications were similar in victims of falls and traffic accidents. Clusters allow adoption of targeted measures of care, prevention and health promotion.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Vigilância de Doenças e Agravos Não Transmissíveis e Promoção da Saúde, Secretaria de Vigilância em Saúde, Ministério da Saúde, Brasília, DF, Brasil, mfreitas.saude@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Mariana Gonçalves
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: de Freitas
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto.
authors.forename: Palmira de Fátima
authors.initials: Pde F
authors.lastname: Bonolo
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Clínica Médica, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
authors.forename: Edgar Nunes
authors.initials: EN
authors.lastname: de Moraes
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Medicina Preventiva e Social, Faculdade de Medicina, UFMG.
authors.forename: Carla Jorge
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Machado
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male