Accidents in Hong Kong

Hong Kong's mortality and morbidity pattern resembles that of any modern industrialized country. Degenerative and chronic diseases are predominant together with accidents. This paper discusses mortality and morbidity due to accidents using the latest available data. Proportionally accidents play an important role in mortality of males of 1–34 years of age and in females of 1–24 years of age for the year 1977. The age-specific accidental mortality rate among males is higher than that among females for all age groups. For males “drowning” and “falls” predominate in the age group 1–4 years. “Drowning” remains significant up to the age of 34 and “falls” through all older age groups. “Motor vehicle” accidents, however, are the principal cause of accidental death after the age of 5 years. As far as morbidity is concerned, four major sources of data have been analysed: discharges from hospitals, records from casualties and reports from industrial and road traffic accidents. Among all discharge diagnoses in the period 1975–9, 12% were accident-linked. Casualty departments of six major hospitals reported that 26% of all casualties were due to trauma in the same period. Reported industrial accidents for the year 1979 showed for males that “stepping on or striking against” an object, “power-driven machinery” and “handling without machinery” were the most important causes. For females only two causes were prominent — “power-driven machinery” and “stepping on or striking against” an object. Details are given for the manufacturing industries. Data on road traffic accidents show that of 19,468 reported casualties 3% were fatal and 26% resulted in serious injuries.