Background: Access to pre-hospital trauma care can help minimize many of traffic related mortality and
morbidity in low- and middle-income countries with high rate of traffic deaths such as Iran. The aim of
this study was to assess if the distribution of pre-hospital trauma care facilities reflect the burden of road
traffic injury and mortality in different provinces in Iran.
Methods: This national cross-sectional study is based on ecological data on road traffic mortality (RTM),
road traffic injuries (RTIs) and pre-hospital trauma facilities for all 30 provinces in Iran in 2006. Lorenz
curves and Gini coefficients were used to describe the distributions of RTM/RTIs and pre-hospital trauma
care facilities across provinces. Spearman rank-order correlation was performed to assess the
relationship between RTM/RTI and pre-hospital trauma care facilities.
Results: RTM and RTIs as well as pre-hospital trauma care facilities were distributed unequally between
different provinces. There was no significant association between the rate of RTM and RTIs and the
number of pre-hospital trauma care facilities across the country.
Conclusions: The distribution of pre-hospital trauma care facilities does not reflect the needs in terms of
RTM and RTIs for different provinces. These results suggest that traffic related mortality and morbidity
could be reduced if the needs in terms of RTM and RTIs were taken into consideration when distributing
pre-hospital trauma care facilities between the provinces.