Article Text
Abstract
Background Past research has shown how fires, heat and hot substances are important causes of health loss globally. Detailed estimates of the morbidity and mortality from these injuries could help drive preventative measures and improved access to care.
Methods We used the Global Burden of Disease 2017 framework to produce three main results. First, we produced results on incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability, deaths, years of life lost and disability-adjusted life years from 1990 to 2017 for 195 countries and territories. Second, we analysed these results to measure mortality-to-incidence ratios by location. Third, we reported the measures above in terms of the cause of fire, heat and hot substances and the types of bodily injuries that result.
Results Globally, there were 8 991 468 (7 481 218 to 10 740 897) new fire, heat and hot substance injuries in 2017 with 120 632 (101 630 to 129 383) deaths. At the global level, the age-standardised mortality caused by fire, heat and hot substances significantly declined from 1990 to 2017, but regionally there was variability in age-standardised incidence with some regions experiencing an increase (eg, Southern Latin America) and others experiencing a significant decrease (eg, High-income North America).
Conclusions The incidence and mortality of injuries that result from fire, heat and hot substances affect every region of the world but are most concentrated in middle and lower income areas. More resources should be invested in measuring these injuries as well as in improving infrastructure, advancing safety measures and ensuring access to care.
- burn
- descriptive epidemiology
- burden of disease
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Footnotes
Funding This study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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Competing interests Dr. Spencer James reports grants from Sanofi Pasteur, outside the submitted work. All other authors have nothing to disclose. Dr. Carl Abelardo T Antonio reports grants and personal fees from Johnson & Johnson (Philippines), Inc., outside the submitted work.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data are available in a public, open access repository. Data are available upon reasonable request. Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available.