Years of potential life lost and spatial analysis of road accidents in medellin pedestrians between 2015-2020

Abstract

Objective: To describe the Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL), and the spatial distributions of mortality caused by road accidents in Medellin pedestrians between the periods of 2015-2020.

Methods: A descriptive study with a secondary source of information was carried out, and all the records of pedestrians killed in road accidents were analyzed. The calculation of the YPLL was carried out by five-year age groups and the Life Expectancy at Birth of Colombia as the age limit estimated by DANE for the period 2015-2020 was chosen. To know the geographical distribution of the deaths, point maps, and kernel density estimation with a standard quantile classification were created. The proximity analysis was performed by the multiple ring buffer method, with distances of 100, 200 and 300 meters.

Results: During the years 2015-2020, 696 pedestrian deaths were registered in Medellin, from which 514 (73.9%) were men and 182 (26.1%) were women. The neighborhoods with the highest mortality were Candelaria with a percentage of 31.2% (217 deaths), and Castilla with a percentage of 8.8% (61 deaths). The most frequent injuries were polytrauma with a total of 401 cases (57.6%), and head injuries in 231 cases (33.2%). In total, the city's pedestrians lost 14,553 YPLL due to road accidents. From the total number of fatal pedestrian accidents, 400 (57.5%) of them occurred within a 300-meter radius of a pedestrian bridge.

Conclusion: Male pedestrians had the highest YPLL rates of the period, and they are the ones who die the most on the road. Head and skull injuries are the most fatal, especially if they are suffered by older adults. The loss of labor and economic power is high for the city, but the social and family loss is incalculable.