in the European Union

12
Figure 8: Selected causes of fatal injuries, Standardised Death Rates (1995 – 2004, Index = 1995), EU27
1.10
1.00
0.90
0.80
0.70
0.60
1995 1996 199 9 7 199 9 8 199 9 9 200 0 0 200 0 1 200 0 2 200 0 3 200 0 4
Figure 9: Injury deaths per 100 000 by sex and age group, EU27
600
550
500
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
All inj n uries
Home and lei e sure r *
Work
Tra r ff ffic Suicide
Homicide
Source: WHO Health for all Database. Data presentation: Kuratorium für Verkehrssicherheit (KfV), 2007
*Estimation of the standardised death rate for home and leisure accidents is calculated as the remainder to all external causes of injury and poisoning minus the defined injury sectors.
EU Injury mortality declines – but not as fast as possible
Recent trends indicate that injury mortality in the 27 Member States of the European Union is on the decline. Over the last ten years (given
data availability) the standardised death rate for all injuries in the EU experienced a reduction of 20%. This decrease can be reported for
all injury areas except for home and leisure, mostly falls in the elderly. This shows that further prevention efforts are required in elderly fall
prevention in order to save more lives from injury death and to accelerate the decline of injury mortality (Figure 8).
Males at risk
When looking at gender, injuries affect males and females disproportionately. The risk of dying from an injury is almost twice as high for
males (72 injury deaths per 100 000 males) than it is for females (35 per 100 000 females). As a result, 66% of EU injury fatalities are male,
34% female (Figure 9).