title: Survey of accidents in suburban Tehran and the prediction of future events based on a time-series model.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Car accidents are currently a social issue globally because they result in the deaths of many people. The aim of this study was to examine traffic accidents in suburban Tehran and forecast the number of future accidents using a time-series model.
  
  
  METHODS
  The sample population of this cross-sectional study was all traffic accidents that caused death and physical injuries in suburban Tehran in 2010 and 2011, as registered by the Tehran Emergency Section. In the present study, Minitab 15 software was used to provide a description of traffic accidents in suburban Tehran for the specified time period as well as those that occurred during April 2012.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results indicated that the average number of traffic accidents in suburban Tehran per day in 2010 was 7.91 with a standard deviation of 7.70. This figure for 2011 was 6 daily traffic accidents with a standard deviation of 5.30. A one-way analysis of variance indicated that the average of traffic accidents in suburban Tehran was different for different months of the year (P = 0.000). The study results showed that different seasons in 2010 and 2011 had significantly different numbers of traffic accidents (P < 0.05). Through an auto-regressive moving average (ARMA), it was predicted that there would be 166 traffic accidents in April 2012 with a mean of 5.53 and maximum of 6 traffic accidents/day.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There has been a decreasing trend in the average number of traffic accidents per day.
authors.affiliation: M.Sc. Student of Occupational Health, Department of Occupational Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Ghulam
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Heidar Teymuri
authors.affiliation: M.Sc. Student of Occupational Health, Department of Occupational Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Rahman
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bahmani
authors.affiliation: Ph.D. Student of Occupational Health, Department of Occupational Health, Arak University of Medical Sciences, Arak, Iran.
authors.forename: Mehdi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Asghari
authors.affiliation: M.Sc. of Biostatistics, Department of Occupational Health, Tehran University of Medical sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Elham
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Madrese
authors.affiliation: M.Sc. Student of Occupational Health, Department of Occupational Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Abdolrasoul
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rahmani
authors.affiliation: M.Sc. Student of Occupational Health, Department of Occupational Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Marzieh
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Abbasinia
authors.affiliation: MD of Industrial Medicine of Oil Company, Ph.D. Student of Addiction Study, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Iman
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ahmadnezhad
authors.affiliation: Ph.D. Student of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mehdi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Samavati
keywords: death; injuries; predictions; traffic accidents