Pattern of underreporting of Road Traffic Injuries (RTIs): An investigation of missing burden of RTIs in Pakistan

Background

A complete and reliable Road Traffic Injuries (RTIs) data is essential for sustainable transport safety policy and health sector. This paper aims to determine the extent of underreporting of RTIs in Pakistan with police and Punjab Emergency Response Service (PERS), taking Lahore as a case study.

Methods

Official data of RTIs was collected from five public sector hospitals of the Lahore city and matched with police and PERS data to determine the extent of underreporting. Further a population-based data from 540 respondents of the city was collected to identify different factors affecting underreporting.

Results

Discordance analysis revealed that the extent of underreporting with police was 99% and with PERS was 39%. Binary logistic regression and Odd-Ratios (OR) informed that car occupants were 4.34 times more likely to report with police. While young people were less likely to report with both police and PERS at rate of 17% and 50% respectively. Different institutional issues in the system were also highlighted based on informal discussions.

Conclusions

The problem of underreporting is mostly observed for non-fatal crashes and young people. It also recommends to establish a road crash data unit at the city level to assess the actual burden of RTIs.