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Results for this study are based on Statistics Canada's Vital Statistics - Death Database, accessed through the Information Retriever/Metainformation Administrator (IRMA) software (July 2007).  Data are extracted from death certificates submitted by the provinces and territories to Statistics Canada.  Cause of death is coded according to World Health Organization's International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD).

Deaths resulting from motor vehicle accidents (MVA) are defined by groups of codes from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD).17-19 The Ninth Revision was in use from 1979 to 1999, after which ICD-10 was implemented.

ICD-9 codes: E810-E825, E929.0 (late effects of motor vehicle accident)

ICD-10 codes: V02-V04, V09.0, V09.2, V12-V14, V19.0-V19.2, V19.4-V19.6, V20-V79, V80.3-V80.5, V81.0-V81.1, V82.0-V82.1, V83-V86, V87.0-V87.8, V88.0-V88.8, V89.0, V89.2, Y85.0 (sequelae of motor-vehicle accident)

These codes include traffic deaths, which are those that occurred on public streets and highways, and non-traffic deaths, which occurred elsewhere.  The codes reflect the victim's mode of transport, including occupants of cars, buses and other street vehicles, motorcycle riders, and operators of farm, construction and recreational vehicles such as snowmobiles and four-wheelers. Deaths of pedestrians, pedal cyclists, riders of animals and occupants of animal-drawn vehicles are included if the accident involved a motor vehicle. Appendix Table A contains a more detailed list of codes for mode of transport.

Sequelae of motor vehicle accident include conditions reported as such, or occurring as "late effects" one year or more after the originating event.

Implementation of the ICD-10 in 2000 has the potential to disrupt trends in the underlying cause of death statistics. A Statistics Canada study dual-coded 1999 deaths to the Ninth and Tenth Revisions of the ICD and generated comparability ratios.20 The comparability ratio for MVAs is 0.9813 (95% CI: 0.9705, 0.9922) signifying that for 1999, 1.9% fewer deaths are classified to this group in ICD-10 than in ICD-9. Consequently, the disruption in the trend of MVA deaths is believed to be minimal.

The study is limited to Canadian residents.  Of the 99,583 MVA deaths between 1979 and 2004, 1,619 (2%) involved non-residents, most of whom (981) were from the United States.  These non-resident deaths are excluded from this study. Deaths of Canadian residents occurring in the United States are included, as these deaths are reported to provincial registrars under a reciprocal agreement.21  However, deaths of Canadian residents occurring in other countries are not reported and are, therefore, excluded from this study.

The mortality data do not contain information about road conditions, the use of seat belts or child restraints, alcohol or drug use, driver distractions, or other circumstantial risk factors. In addition, analysis by mode of transport is limited, as a third of death certificates did not provide sufficient detail to be classified. A death resulting from a collision between a car and an off-road vehicle, for example, would be "unspecified" unless the death certificate specified whether the person was an occupant of the car or the driver of the off-road vehicle. This lack of information prevented a more detailed analysis by province.