Pedestrian mortality in road traffic accidents in Brazil: time trend analysis, 1996-2015

Objective: to analyze the mortality coefficient trend for road traffic accidents involving pedestrians in Brazil, by sex, age range and macro-region, between 1996 and 2015. Methods: this was an ecological time series study using data from the Ministry of Health's Mortality Information System (SIM); Prais-Winstein generalized linear regression was used to calculate annual percentage change. Results: pedestrian deaths corresponded to 26.5% of deaths due to road traffic accidents; mortality among pedestrians decreased 63.2% in the country as a whole, with the standardized coefficient varying between 8.9 to 3.3 per 100,000 inhabitants, although the decrease in the country's North and the Northeast regions was slower than the national average; being run over was significantly higher among men and the elderly. Conclusion: although mortality among pedestrians is decreasing in all regions of the country, current figures still account for a large part of road traffic mortality.