Epidemiology of Deaths from Road Traffic Accidents in Nigeria: A Baseline Study of Lagos State

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the epidemiology of deaths from Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs) in Nigeria using Lagos State as a baseline study and to suggest preventive and corrective safety measures towards reducing the traffic accidents in the study area. The reported number of deaths from road traffic accidents in the 20 Local Government Areas of Lagos State from 1970-2010 were compared using the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The result showed that for the two factors, Local Government Areas and Years, the f-calculated of 18.32 and 7.43 respectively were higher than the f-tabular of 1.64 and 1.32 respectively at 0.05 level of significance. It then implies that the means for each of the factors reported number of deaths across the 20 L.G.A.’s in Lagos State and across different years were significantly different. Based on the findings recommendations were proffered.

Key words: Epidemiology; traffic; accidents; Lagos; Nigeria