Global Incidence and Mortality Patterns of Pedestrian Road Traffic Injuries by Sociodemographic Index, with Forecasting: Findings from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors 2017 Study

(1) Background: Pedestrian injuries (PIs) represent a significant proportion of road traffic injuries. Our aim was to investigate the incidence and mortality of PIs in different age groups and sociodemographic index (SDI) categories between 1990 and 2017. (2) Method: Estimates of age-standardized incidence and mortality along with trends of PIs by SDI levels were obtained from the Global Burden of Disease from 1990 to 2017. We also forecasted the trends across all the SDI categories until 2040 using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 23.0, Chicago, IL, USA) time series expert modeler. (3) Results: Globally, the incidence of PIs increased by 3.31% (-9.94 to 16.56) in 2017 compared to 1990. Men have higher incidence of PIs than women. Forecasted incidence was 132.02 (127.37 to 136.66) per 100,000 population in 2020, 101.52 (65.99 to 137.05) in 2030, and reduced further to 71.02 (10.62 to 152.65) by 2040. Globally across all SDI categories, there was a decreasing trend in mortality due to PIs with the global estimated percentage reduction of 37.12% (-45.19 to -29.04). (4) Conclusions: The results show that PIs are still a burden for all SDI categories despite some variation. Although incidence and mortality are expected to decrease globally, some SDI categories and specific vulnerable age groups may require particular attention. Further studies addressing incidence and mortality patterns in vulnerable SDI categories are needed.