PW 2511 Road traffic fatalities in sri lanka: an analysis of autopsy reports

Road fatalities are a major public health problem in Sri Lanka. Annually there are over 3000 deaths reported due to road traffic crashes. Institute of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology (IFMT), Colombo is the main center which performs autopsies of majority of these deaths in Sri Lanka. We carried out this analysis to describe epidemiology of road fatalities reported to IFMT during year 2016. We extracted data from the autopsy reports of the road traffic injury deaths from the autopsy register of the IFMT for the year of 2016. In total, 440 deaths were included in the analysis. We analysed the extracted data using Microsoft Excel and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22. At IFMT, in year 2016, 440 autopsies were carried due road traffic fatalities. Out of 440 deaths, 368 (83.6%) were males and 72 (16.4%) were females. Age was not normally distributed in this population and median age was 53.0 years (IQR – 32.0 to 75.0 years). Age was significantly different among males and females (P value Majority of road traffic crash victims were vulnerable road users. Further studies are required explore causative factors for these crashes. New policies to be introduced in order to achieve SDG goal 3.7 by 2020.