Introduction: The purpose of this study was to estimate the average costs of injuries and the proportion of total (treatment + social) costs covered when including injuries treated at the hospital.
Material and methods: The empirical data consisted of emergency department visits (n = 29,516) from the catchment area of Odense University Hospital in 1992 for all age groups and a representative population sample (n = 1074 injuries) for the age group 15-67 years old. The costs were assessed following the "cost of illness" principles.
Results: The average costs per injured person varied significantly by age and were 26,119 DKK for 68+ years old, 2357 DKK for 15-67 years old, and 1528 DKK for 0-14 years old. The total direct costs for hospital treated persons were 117 million DKK, of which "injuries at home among elderly women" totalled 29% and road traffic injuries 25%. The numerical proportion of hospital treated injuries was 36% (95% CI 32-39%), but in economic terms 92% for treatment costs, and 85% when including social costs.
Discussion: The proportion of total regional economic costs is considerably higher (85 or 92%) than in numerical terms for hospital based registration of injuries. Future cost studies can be based on hospital data for the age group 15-67 years old for road traffic injuries. If extrapolated conservatively to all of Denmark (population approx five million) the figures indicate that an amount of approx 2.-2.5 billion DKK per year (2002 level) is spent.