Demographics of road injuries and micromobility injuries among China, India, Japan, and the United States population: evidence from an age-period-cohort analysis

BACKGROUND: Micromobility sharing platforms have involved skyrocketing numbers of users in multiple countries since 2010. However, few studies have examined the overall impact of the growing micromobility market on road injuries. METHOD: We use road injury data from the Global Burden of Disease Study database to examine the effect of age, period, and cohort on micromobility injury-related deaths and incidence. We compared four countries that vary in demographic background and road infrastructure. By comparing the countries, we analyzed the relationship between the trends in road injuries and these factors. RESULTS: We found an overall upward trend in micromobility injuries. A higher risk of micromobility-related injuries was witnessed in China and the US in 2015-2019, and people older than 45 showed a growing micromobility-related mortality and incidence rate in China, India, and the US. Cohorts after 1960 showed higher micromobility injury incidence risks in China and India, but the population born after 1990 in India showed a slightly lower risk compared to those before it. CONCLUSIONS: The boosted usage of micromobility devices explains these increasing trends. Road infrastructure and separated traffic ease the collisions from micromobility devices. The overall situation calls for improvement in legislation as well as road infrastructure. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-13152-6.