Adolescents' health and health behaviour as predictors of injury death. A prospective cohort follow-up of 652,530 person-years

• Main Authors: Nummi Tapio (Author), Koivusilta Leena (Author), Parkkari Jari (Author), Mattila Ville M (Author), Kannus Pekka (Author), Rimpelä Arja (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: BMC, 2008-03-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.

Summary

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Injuries represent an important cause of mortality among young adults. Longitudinal studies on risk factors are scarce. We studied associations between adolescents' perceived health and health behaviour and injury death.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A prospective cohort of 57,407 Finns aged 14 to 18 years was followed for an average of 11.4 years. The end-point of study was injury death or termination of follow-up in 2001. The relationships of eight health and health behaviour characteristics with injury death were studied with adjusted Cox's proportional hazard model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We identified 298 (0.5%) injury deaths, 232 (0.9%) in men and 66 (0.2%) in women. The mean age at death was 23.8 years. In the models adjusted for age, sex and socioeconomic background, the strongest risk factors for injury death were recurring drunkenness (HR 2.1; 95% CI: 1.4-3.1) and daily smoking (HR 1.7; 95% CI: 1.3-2.2). Poor health did not predict injury death. Unintentional and intentional injury deaths had similar health and health behavioural risk factors.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Health compromising behaviour adopted at adolescence has a clear impact on the risk of injury death in adulthood independent from socioeconomic background. On the other hand, poor health as such is not a significant predictor of injury death. Promotion of healthy lifestyle among adolescents as part of public health programmes would seem an appropriate way to contribute to adolescent injury prevention.</p>

Item Description

10.1186/1471-2458-8-90
1471-2458