Mortality situation of occupational injuries in Viet Nam during 2005-2009

Introduction
Occupational injury (OI) is one of the five leading causes of death related injury in Viet Nam. In order to assess the situation of OI in Vietnam from 2005-2009, the study examined all causes specific mortality from A6-YTCS book of over 10,000 communes in 63/63 provinces/cities

Methods
Retrospective method with of all causes of deaths during 2005-2009 was used.

Results
The study showed that during 2005-2009, there were 9,413 deaths related OI which were accounted for 30.3% of the total injuries. OI occupied the forth position among the leading causes of death related injury, only after road traffic injuries, drowning and suicide. Deaths related OI were 1.5; 1.8 and 2.2 times higher than that of falls, poisoning, and burns and violence, respectively. More than 80% deaths related OI occurred in male. Age group 20-59 had the highest number of deaths related OI with 1,800 (equivalent to 4 cases per 100,000 population), followed by group above 60 of age, group 15-19, group 10-14 and group 0-4. This could be explained that people at the age group 20-59 are the major workforce in Viet Nam. The predominant number of deaths related OI occurred in the Red River Delta area with about 530 cases per year, followed by the North Central coast area and the North East region. Among provinces/cities, Thanh Hoa had the greatest average number of deaths related OI. ranked the second position, while Ha Noi was on the third place.

Discussion
The research described a great number of relatively comprehensive results on mortality related OI in Vietnam. Development of policy to reduce OI deaths requires appropriate interventional measures such as the national OI prevention plan, enhancement of pre-hospital trauma care at workplace, sentinel surveillance systems on determination of risks of OI or improvement of working conditions.