Abstract

• There is no national system to manage, evaluate, and analyse the information about accidents, even though it is necessary for accident prevention policies and health promotion of the general public. The existing studies are, also limited as they focus only on particular group (for example: inpatients, emergency room patients) or on particular geographic areas. Thus the results of the studies cannot be applied to the general public. In order to overcome these limitations, this research focuses on data collection and analysis from accident information for the general population. By providing the analysis on types and causes of accidents, this research aims to produce the basic data neccesary for accident prevention policy development. The specific aims of this research are to: 1. Analyse the actual occurrences and characteristics of accidents. 2. Suggest for the accident prevention policies and safety education. Accident report form three major newspaper printed in Korea between January 1, 1989 and December 31, 1993 were collected, and the cause, place, time, and personal injury related to the accidents were classified and then analyzed by descriptive statistics. The results of this research conclude: 1. The number of accidents reported by the three newspapers were 2155. 2. The highest proportion of accidents were as follows; occurred during the June-August(31. 2%), Sunday (24.8%), and 5 p.m. (7.6%) of the day. 3. The highest proportion of the accident occurred in Seoul(33.1%), Kyunggi province (14.5%), Kangwon province(7.8%), and Kyungnam province6.7%) were next highest. 4. The main causes include car accidents (32.4%), drowning(10.9%), falls(8.8%), explosion(7.1%), and poisoning (5.8%). 5. Slightly more than half of injuries(50.5%) and about two fifths of deaths(40.3%) were caused by car accidents. Therefore, the most serious type of accidents were car accidents. 6. The number of males in accidents were almost three times higher than that of females (males: 72.3%, females :27.7%). 7. The age group from 10 to 19 years old represents the highest proportion(21%) of accidents. 8. The number of the accidents in Korea, based on the information collected from the newspapers, is estimated to be 14,367 per year. The number of injuries is estimated to be 88,480 persons, and the number of deaths 29,007 respectively. It is said that ninety percent of accidents can be prevented. Several accidents prevention policies are suggested here. 1. Safety education should be done more actively throughtout life, with special emphasis on safety education for children. 2. Safety measures for children(halmets for cycling, children car seats, seats belts, and so on) should be emphasized. 3. An injury surveillance system should be initiated. The initiation of injury reporting system in each factory and school could contribute considerably to the reduction of accidents.

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