Background Road trauma represents a major but neglected public health challenge in Malawi that requires concerted efforts for effective and sustainable prevention. In order to make the road traffic system safer, it is important to develop an understanding of the whole system and its elements including vehicles, roads and road-users along with their physical, social and environmental circumstances. In this study, we measured data quality in terms of database and variable completeness of road trauma case reports to determine if the data are sufficient for informing, monitoring and evaluating road safety interventions. Methods This was a quantitative retrospective study based in Ntcheu district, Malawi. Data were collected for year 2018 from both police and hospital sources. Categorical data exploration from these two sources was done using frequency distribution tables. Continuous data were summarized using means and standard deviation. Data source completeness was assessed using the capture–recapture methodology, while variable completeness was assessed using a checklist developed from the World Health Organization’s minimum injury surveillance core data set. Results The hospital data source was incomplete in areas of road user type, time of injury, mechanism of injury and place of injury. Thirteen case matches were identified between the two databases. Using the capture-recapture methods, the estimated road trauma events in Ntcheu district for the year 2018 is 954 (95% CI: 457, 1451) and an estimated 173 deaths (95% CI: 89, 257) in the same year. These estimates indicate 11% and 14% ascertainment of fatalities for the police and hospital data sources respectively.Discussion and conclusion There is significant underreporting for road deaths and injuries in Ntcheu district, which means there are critical data quality challenges in the respective data sources. It is therefore imperative for the road safety agencies and partners to resolve these data reporting and acquisition challenges.

Background: Road trauma represents a significant yet neglected public health challenge in Zambia leading to loss of lives, severe disabilities and hampering development. It disproportionately affects low and middle income countries (LMIC) with 90%  of all road deaths occurring there. Zambia, like many other LMIC lacks robust evidence to guide road safety initiatives and program planning due to limited research, poor quality data and competing health priorities. Objectives: We aimed to investigate the epidemiology of road trauma cases seen at a general hospital in Monze district from 2013 to 2017. We further assessed the road trauma data quality as captured by the hospital registry. Methods: We reviewed records for all road trauma cases seen at Monze Mission Hospital from 2013 to 2017. Descriptive statistics  were used to summarised using means and proportion. We further assess the variables captured for each case that  presented at the hospital including socio-demographic and trauma-related details. Depending on the quality of data obtained, statistical methods were applied to explain the epidemiology including Chi-square, t-tests and proportional  tests were used to assess the differences in means and proportions, respectively. Results: The road trauma data at MMH are very poor evidenced by a lot of missing variables for road trauma cases that would aid  understanding of the epidemiology of road trauma cases seen at the facility. However, of the 449 road trauma cases reviewed, 62.4% of these were males. The highest road trauma burden was recorded among those aged 15-44. Time trend analysis shows a decreasing pattern in road deaths in Monze district. The case-fatality rates were very high with more than 90% the of deaths occurring before arrival at the hospital. However, many case files lacked data on occupation, education level, type of road user, type of vehicles involved and time of collision. Conclusion: The available data at MMH suggested that young and active people aged 15-44 years were the most affected of road  trauma in Monze district, with males experiencing a higher burden than females. The data also showed a decreasing  trend in the road trauma burden in Monze district. However, these results should be interpreted with great caution as the data are highly unreliable due to suspected very high levels of underreporting.