[Time distribution characteristics of traffic injury in different age groups in Beijing from 2004 to 2008].

Objective: To analyze the time distributions of traffic accidents happening in different age groups in Beijing from 2004 to 2008, and to provide information on the prevention and rescue.

Methods: The traffic injury cases recorded by Beijing Emergency Medical Center from 2004 to 2008 were analyzed, and the data were separated by age: the youth (0-17 years old), the adult (18-64 years old) and the senior adult (above 65 years old). The constituent ratios of hours and months were calculated to describe the states and time distributions of all the cases.

Results: The high peaks of accidents for the youth group occurred in the periods 7:00 to 8:00 (6.77%, 39) and 16:00 to 18:00 (10.38%, 60;10.73%, 62), and for the senior adult group appeared in the period 9:00 to 11:00 (11.19%, 151; 11.04%, 149). The adult group showed a stable trend during the period 8:00 to 24:00. The amount of traffic injury happening in these three groups had the same status monthly, which turned out that most traffic accidents happened in October for all the groups (12.11%, 70; 10.38%, 1 257; 12.30%, 166), and February had the smallest number (4.15%, 24; 5.28%, 640; 5.26%, 71).

Conclusion: The time distributions of traffic injury within these three groups do not show the same situation daily but do monthly. The emergency treatment team and traffic control personnel should pay attention to this and have special protocol for different cases to increase the efficiency of the prehospital rescue.