RHP&EO is the electronic journal of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education

Cost Of Injuries

Jansson, Bjame and Springfeldt, Bengt

Karolinska Institute, Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Sosial Medicine, Sundbyberg, Sweden

In a research project a road safety program for ranking road safety measures (named EVA) is tested on accidents of different types. The program has been in use since the 70's and has been transferred to the Swedish railways and the Norwegian roads. The costs for killed and injured persons due to road traffic accidents and other accidents have been divided into three parts:

Expenses for hospital care, consultations with physicians, drugs, therapeutic aid etc
Loss of production due to short term illness, permanent disability and premature death
Costs associated with pain, suffering and grief (human value).

In the EVA-program and in our program the material costs for medical care and loss of production are calculated by use of the so called production method. The human values are estimated by use of the willingness-to-pay approach.

In our project a computer program is made where data from official statistics and an insurance information system are classified and matched. The variables are entered into a new database. Costs for medical care and lost production according to the estimations in the EVA-program are transmitted to the injuries registered. In this first step accidents caused by vehicles and fall of person are analysed - accidents that remind of traffic accidents.

The average costs per person have been estimated for seven severity degrees. Furthermore, light injuries according to official statistics solely have been accounted for in three severity groups. From the variables of the two information systems it was possible to account the material costs of vehicle and fall injuries. Valuation of changes or loss of health is added to the material costs by political decision. For the present time the Swedish road authorities have appreciated the willingness to pay for a save of human life to ten times the direct and indirect costs together. Severe injuries have a human value of four times the material costs and light injuries 0,9 x these costs.

The method describes how to estimate the costs for society when people is taken away from their work and being cured in hospital etc. The method can be used for estimation of the effects when people of other reasons are obliged to leave their work and be hospitalized: occupational and other diseases, schooling accidents, sports accidents, home accidents, leisure-time accidents. We suggest that the method developed should be implemented in Swedish monitoring of injuries as a base of a more complete planning model for specific preventive measures.

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