Health status : 30(a). Injuries: road traffic: self-reported incidence (I) -

Proportion of individuals reporting to have had a road traffic accident, which resulted in injury during the past 12 months.
Proportion of individuals reporting to have had a road traffic accident, which resulted in injury for which medical treatment was sought during the past 12 months.

Calculation

1) Proportion of individuals reporting to have had a road traffic accident during the past 12 months, derived from EHIS question HS.7: In the past 12 months, have you had any of the following type of accidents resulting in injury (external or internal)? 1. Road traffic accident (yes / no). 2) Proportion of individuals reporting to have had a road traffic accident during the past 12 months, derived from EHIS: question HS.7 and HS.8: HS.7 In the past 12 months, have you had any of the following type of accidents resulting in injury (external or internal)? 1. Road traffic accident (yes / no). If yes, select respondents who answered positively to HS.8; HS.8: Did you visit a doctor, a nurse or an emergency department of a hospital as a result of this accident? (Yes, I visited a doctor or nurse / Yes, I went to an emergency department / No consultation or intervention was necessary). EHIS data will not be age standardized.

Relevant dimensions and subgroups

Country
Calendar year
Sex
Age group (15-24; 25-64; 65+)
Socio-economic status (educational level. ISCED 3 aggregated groups: 0-2; 3+4; 5+6)
Region (according to ISARE recommendations; see data availability)

Preferred data type and data source

Preferred data type

HIS

Preferred data source

Eurostat (EHIS)

Data availability

BE, BG, CZ, DE, EE, EL, ES, FR, IT, CY, LV, HU, MT, AT, PL, RO, SI, SK, CH, NO and TR conducted a first wave of EHIS between 2006 and 2010. It is noted that not in all of these countries a full scale survey was carried out; in some only specific modules were applied, in others the full questionnaire was applied in a small pilot sample. It is expected that all EU Member States will conduct EHIS in the second wave, which is planned for 2014. The results of the first wave are expected to be published in two stages, 11 countries in October 2010, the remaining countries in April 2011. EHIS data are available by sex, 8 age groups (15-24/25-34/35-44/45-54/55-64/65-74/75-84/85+) and ISCED groups.

Data periodicity

EHIS will be conducted once every 5 years. The first wave took place in 2007/2010 (with some derogations in 2006) and the second wave is planned for 2014.

Rationale

The EU IDB estimates that road injuries account for 10% of all hospital treated injuries or a total of 4.3 million victims annually. Though preventive measures have been proven effective, resulting in declining incidence rates, large health gains can still be achieved and inequalities between Member States can still be diminished.

Remarks

According to current plans, Eurostat will probably not age-standardize EHIS data. For comparability reasons ECHIM would however prefer age-standardized data.
EHIS allows for the computation of person-incidence, i.e. the number of persons who have had one or more accidents during the last year. It would be preferable to know the case-incidence, i.e. the number of accidents that occurred during the last year, as this gives a more precise estimate the occurrence of injuries. Register data generally do allow for the measurement of case-incidence. Therefore ECHIM has also defined a register based incidence operationalization (see indicator 30(b)). However, the disadvantage of road traffic registers is that they are generally based on hospital records and/or police files. Therefore they result in an underestimation of incidence figures.
The above definition and calculation are based on the first version of the EHIS questionnaire, as used in the first EHIS wave (2007/2010). The EHIS questionnaire will be revised, hence adaptations to the EHIS question underlying this indicator may occur in the second wave (planned for 2014).
The legal basis for EHIS is regulation (EC) No 1338/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 on Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work. This is an umbrella regulation. Specific implementing acts will define the details of the statistics Member States have to deliver to Eurostat. An implementing act on EHIS is expected to come into force in 2014.