Unintentional injury deaths in an adult Finnish population from 1971-1997.

We investigated the trends in age-standardized rates (per 100,000 persons-years) of unintentional injury deaths in adult Finns from 1971-1997. In 1971, the leading category of unintentional injury resulting in death among Finnish men was road traffic accidents (age-standardized death rate 47 per 100,000 person-years). This rate has declined sharply, reaching 13 per 100,000 person-years in 1997. Simultaneously, the rate of fall-induced death among men gradually increased from 17/100,000 person-years in 1971 to 21/100,000 person-years in 1997. In 1997 the death rate from falls in men was greater than that of any other category of injury. In 1971, traffic caused fewer deaths in women (rate 17/100,000 person-years) than men, and declined from there to a rate of 6/100,000 person-years in 1997. Concurrently the rate of fall-induced deaths in women also decreased, from 27/100,000 person-years in 1971 to 17/100,000 person-years in 1997. Falling, however, was the leading cause of injury-related death in 1997. Thus, in the period 1971-1997, falls replaced road traffic accidents as the leading cause of unintentional injury death in Finland.