Accidents and intentional injuries are one of the major causes of death, hospital admissions and disabilities in Luxembourg and worldwide. The Ministry of Health, in collaboration with LIH’s Department of Population Health has committed itself to an evidence-based injury prevention policy. In the framework of the European Injury Data Base (IDB) network, extensive data on injuries and accidents occurring in the country in 2014 were collected by the national injury monitoring system and now published in a report.
At the national level, the programme is called RETRACE, standing for “Recueil de données sur les TRaumatismes et ACcidents au Luxembourg”. Information on injuries and accidents is collected in the emergency departments of the country's hospitals. In 2014, three out of the four hospitals (Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg, Centre Hospitalier Emile Mayrisch and Centre Hospitalier du Nord) participated in RETRACE. In accordance with the common European IDB methodology, RETRACE collects a detailed set of information on causes and circumstances of injury, from one hospital. A less detailed level of information is collected from the other participating hospitals. The information from the hospitals is combined to estimate the national burden of injuries in terms of morbidity by prevention domain, age, gender, mechanism of injury, etc.
After a first RETRACE report co-authored by the Ministry of Health and LIH and published in 2015, presenting the national statistics on accidents and injuries from 2013 and comparing them at the international level, the second report with data from 2014 is now available on the Health Portal www.sante.lu.
Dr Dritan Bejko, epidemiologist at LIH and project leader for RETRACE, explains the main findings of the new report: “With about 263 fatalities registered every year, injury is the 4th leading cause of death after cardiovascular disease, cancer and respiratory disease. In Luxembourg, as in other countries, injury is the leading cause of death for children, teenagers and adults up to the age of 44. In 2014, 4516 people were hospitalised for injury and 60,400 were treated as outpatients in the hospital’s emergency departments. Children, teenagers and the elderly are the most vulnerable population groups and will be the target for preventive measures.”
Download the RETRACE report (in French)
