1,200 people die from accidental falls in 2017

A total of 1,200 people died as a result of accidental stumbles and falls in 2017, according to Statistics Finland.

In recent years, the number of accidental falls especially among men has increased.

Four out of five falls resulting in death occurred to persons aged over 75. The most common place where accidents happened was at home.

Deaths from accidental falls have increased significantly. In the 1970s they caused the death of around 500 persons yearly in Finland, whereas 1,200 persons died, 700 men and 500 women in 2017.

Relative to population size, the number of deaths caused by falls has more than doubled in forty years. During the last ten years men’s mortality from accidental falls has increased by over 10 per cent, whereas correspondingly women’s mortality has remained the same.

Falls resulting in death increase with age. Fewer than 10 persons aged under 35 died from stumbles or falls in 2017. The majority of stumbling accidents occurred to persons aged over 75.

The average age at death caused by falls was 81 years for men and 88 years for women. Relative to the population, the older the age group in question, the more deaths caused by falls occurred, for both women and men. Furthermore, in relative terms, clearly more falls leading to death occurred to men than to women in all age groups.

The number of fatal accidental falls has increased during the last decades mostly due to the population’s ageing age structure.

When taking into account the population size and the change in age structure, fatal falling accidents among women have in fact decreased since the 1970s and especially in the 2000s. On the contrary, for men the age-standardised mortality adjusted for age structure has not developed as favourably, but mortality was slightly higher in 2017 compared to mortality in the 1970s and at the beginning of the 1980s.