RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Surveillance of injury-related deaths: medicolegal autopsy rates and trends in Finland
JF Injury Prevention
JO Inj Prev
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP 282
OP 284
DO 10.1136/ip.2006.012922
VO 13
IS 4
A1 Philippe Lunetta
A1 Anne Lounamaa
A1 Sanna Sihvonen
YR 2007
UL http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/13/4/282.abstract
AB Medicolegal autopsies are a vital tool for obtaining reliable injury mortality data. In Finland, medicolegal autopsies have increased from 13.6% of all deaths in 1970 to 23.8% in 2004. In fact, medicolegal autopsies are performed in 87.2% of all unintentional injury deaths, 98.3% of homicides and 99.5% of suicides. Finland has exceedingly high medicolegal autopsy rates compared with other countries. Autopsy rates should be appropriately considered when performing international comparisons of injury-related deaths.