The construction of a road injury database

In order to effectively examine possible causes and determinants of road trauma, reliable informa- tion on the participants, circumstances, and resultant injuries and deaths must be available. Characteristics of participants (persons and vehicles) and the circumstances of road accidents are routinely collected by police and road authorities, whereas details of the injuries and medical care provided to casualties are collected by hospital and ambulance services. A road injury database, linking data collected by the Health, Police, and Main Roads Departments of the Government of Western Australia with records of the St. John Ambulance Association and the Death Register, has been established. This paper describes the procedures used to link the various sources of data and discusses the design, construction, and quality of the resultant relational database.