title: Mortality and Morbidity of Urban Road Traffic Crashes in Africa: Capture-Recapture Estimates in Bamako, Mali, 2012.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Low- and middle-income countries are currently facing the massive public health challenge of road traffic injuries. The lack of effective surveillance systems hinders proper assessment of epidemiologic status and intervention priorities. The objective of our study was to estimate the mortality and morbidity attributable to road crashes in Bamako, Mali using the capture-recapture method.
  
  
  METHODS
  During the 1 January, 2012-31 April, 2012 period, we collected data on road traffic crashes from the road accident registers of the police forces of Bamako, Mali on the one hand, and from a register kept by health facilities in the same area. An automatic, then manual matching procedure was performed to find pairs of records related to the same crash victims. The number of victims and the number of fatalities were estimated by the capture-recapture method using the Chapman estimator.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The health facility and the police registries included 3587 and 1432 records, respectively. The matching procedure identified 603 common records, 31 of which were fatalities. The annual incidence estimate for road victims was 1038 in 100 000 and the annual incidence estimate for road fatalities was 12 in 100 000. Victims from both sources were more likely to be male, in the 15-34 age group, and almost half of all injured road users and two in three fatalities were using motorized two-wheelers. One victim out of five was a pedestrian.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our estimates are in line with available literature data from low-income countries. While more cases were reported by health facilities than by police forces, we believe that an effective surveillance system should not be based solely on medical reports as much would be missing as regards the crash circumstances and characteristics.
authors.affiliation: Département d'Enseignement et de Recherche Santé Publique et Spécialités, Faculté de Médecine et d'Odonto-Stomatologie, Université des Sciences, des Techniques et des Technologies de Bamako, Bamako, Mali.
authors.forename: Hammadoum A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Sango
authors.affiliation: Département de Santé Publique. Centre MURAZ, Ministère de la Santé, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso.
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Testa
authors.affiliation: Département de Santé Publique. Centre MURAZ, Ministère de la Santé, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso.|Centre de Recherche Internationale pour la santé, UFR Sciences de la santé, Université de Ouagadougou, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Meda
authors.affiliation: Équipe Prévention et prise en charge des traumatismes. Inserm U897 ISPED-Université de Bordeaux2, Bordeaux, France.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Contrand
authors.affiliation: Département d'Enseignement et de Recherche Santé Publique et Spécialités, Faculté de Médecine et d'Odonto-Stomatologie, Université des Sciences, des Techniques et des Technologies de Bamako, Bamako, Mali.|Institut National de Recherche en Santé Publique (INRSP), Ministère de la Santé et de l'Hygiène Publique, Bamako, Mali.
authors.forename: Mamadou S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Traoré
authors.affiliation: Département « Ingénierie du Risque et Informatique de Santé », UMR 912 SESSTIM INSERM, Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, Nice, France.
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Staccini
authors.affiliation: Équipe Prévention et prise en charge des traumatismes. Inserm U897 ISPED-Université de Bordeaux2, Bordeaux, France.
authors.forename: Emmanuel
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lagarde
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000401:mortality*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003906:Developing Countries; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008302:Mali / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014505:Urban Population; D014507:Urbanization; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult