The Impact of Selected Individual and External Factors on the Occurrence of Severe Injuries: Case Study of Slovenia

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the importance of different determinants and their impact on the severity of injuries of individuals in road traffic accidents, so that measures that are supposed to prevent or reduce severe injury consequences can be developed. In this paper three research models have been built. Model I was built to study the impact of demographic factors (gender and age) on the individual’s likelihood to wear a seat-belt while Model II to study the impact of demographic factors (gender and age) and the impact of wearing a seat belt on the likelihood that fatal injuries of individuals in road traffic accidents occur. Model III was formed to study the impact of several environmental factors on the likelihood that the accident involves severe or fatal injuries of road traffic accident participants. Altogether our study revealed that middle-aged individuals (over 25 years and up to 65 years old) are less likely to wear a seat belt and at the same time more likely to suffer fatal injuries in road traffic accidents. This is the result that implies that the targeted policy measures to the population between 25 and 65 years of age are needed to reduce the fatal injuries occurrence in Slovenia.