Key figures

Key figures from the 2013-2020 report

The RETRACE multiyear report contains data relating to injuries and accidents in Luxembourg over 8 years. The years studied are 2013 to 2020, which includes the year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of this multiyear report, which is available to the public, is to give a view of changes in trends relating to injuries and accidents across the years 2013-2020, analysing the data from hospital emergency visits taken from the RETRACE database, and mortality data from the Causes-of-Death Register (Registre des causes de décès).

There are various key points that can be taken from the RETRACE 2013-2020 report, in particular:

• On average, 265 people a year die as the result of an injury or accident;
• The leading causes of death due to injury/accident are suicide (22 %) , accidental falls (21 %)  and road traffic accidents (14 %);
• According to estimates,
  • 526,382 people were treated by the emergency departments of the country's 4 hospitals between 2013 and 2020 (87.5 % of them residents, 12.5 % non-residents);
  • 4,333 people are hospitalised each year as a result of injury/accident, which represents a hospitalisation rate for injury of 7 %;

• The proportion of non-residents admitted to an emergency department in Luxembourg rose between 2013 and 2020;
• Children aged 0 to 14, adolescents and young adults aged between 15 and 24, and people aged 70 or over are particularly at risk. Hence, these are the target groups for injury and accident prevention schemes;
• The majority of injuries/accidents among children aged 0 to 4 occur in the home: falls at home are responsible for 65 % of injuries to Luxembourg-resident children aged 0 to 4;
• The majority of injuries/accidents among children aged 5 to 14 occur at school: the injuries resulting from falls are bruises in 36 % of cases, fractures and sprains in 30 % of cases and wounds in 16 % of cases;
• 15- to 24-year-olds tend to present with sports-related injuries (24 %), domestic or leisure-related accidents (20 %) and accidents at school (12 %);
• There was a drop in emergency treatment of the general population as a result of injuries/accidents in 2020, in comparison to the period 2013-2019. However, among people aged 70 and over, 2020 saw a slight increase compared to the period 2013-2019. The same finding also applies to hospital admissions for that population group.