Unintentional injuries
Hospital Admissions: Year ending 31 March 2024 Deaths: Year ending 31 December 2023
A National Statistics publication for Scotland
- Published
- 29 October 2024 (Latest release)
- Type
- Statistical report
- Author
- Public Health Scotland
About this release
This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) reports on emergency hospital admissions and deaths as a result of unintentional injury.
Main points
- In 2023/24, there were 56,294 emergency hospital admissions for unintentional injuries. This represents 1 in 10 of all emergency admissions in Scotland. In 2023, unintentional injuries led to 2,822 deaths.
- Road traffic injuries accounted for almost 5% of all admissions to hospital for an unintentional injury in 2023/24. In the under 15 age group, admission rates for this injury cause have been decreasing steadily over the past 10 years from 36 per 100,000 in 2014/15 to 26 per 100,000 in 2023/24.
- There remains a significant gap in the mortality rates between the most deprived and least deprived areas in Scotland. Mortality rates due to unintentional injuries in adults were 96% higher in the most deprived areas but 50% lower in the least deprived areas when compared to the Scottish average.
- Falls were by far the most common cause of emergency admissions for unintentional injuries in children under 15, for both males and females, accounting for 42% of the 5,746 emergency admissions in 2023/24.
- In 2023/24 there were 28,389 emergency admissions to hospital for an unintentional injury in those aged 65 and over, with just over 86% of these being the result of a fall.
Background
Unintentional injuries can occur in any age group, but children and the elderly are more vulnerable. The term ‘unintentional injury’ is used rather than ‘accidents’ as ‘accident’ implies that events are unavoidable when a high proportion of these incidents are preventable.
The information comes from hospital administrative systems across Scotland, up to and including the financial year 2023/24 and from death registrations sourced from National Records of Scotland, up to and including calendar year 2023.
Further information
The next release of this publication will be October 2025.
General enquiries
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Older versions of this publication
Versions of this publication released before 16 March 2020 may be found on the Data and Intelligence, Health Protection Scotland or Improving Health websites.