Introduction: In Germany, too, accidents cause a lot of harm, high costs for treatment and lost working hours, and they are a relevant cause of death, especially at a young age. This paper presents recent data from a nationwide survey conducted in this way across the European Union (European Health Interview Survey, EHIS).

Objectives: The prevalence of non-fatal accidents in Germany overall and at three accident locations is presented (at home, during leisure time, in traffic). Differences between women and men and between age groups are discussed.

Methods: The data come from a nationwide study, “German Health Update” (GEDA 2019/2020-EHIS), which was conducted by telephone between April 2019 and September 2020. 22,708 randomly selected people aged 18 and over took part. They were asked about accidents in the last 12 months and any medical care they had received. The data set was weighted by age, gender, education and regional characteristics. Accident frequencies and 95% CI are presented. Significance is assumed if p>0.05. Only significant group differences
are reported.

Results: Overall, 12.1% of women and 13.1% of men in Germany suffered at least one accident within 12 months. 45.0% of the accident victims were treated in hospital, 28.4% were treated as outpatients. The most common accidents reported by respondents were leisure accidents (7.7%), followed by domestic accidents (5.1%) and traffic accidents (2.1%). Women are less frequently affected by accidents than men, both in leisure time and in traffic. The clearest age differences (18-29 y. vs. 65+ y.) are found in leisure accidents, younger women (11.1%) and men (19.8%) are affected considerably more often than older ones (women: 4.5%, men 3.4%). Only in the case of domestic accidents there is an inverse age gradient in the group of women, with the highest age group being more affected (8.9% (65+ y.) vs. 4.2% (45-64 y.) vs. 3.5% (30-44 y.)).

Conclusion: The present results underline the high importance of accidental injuries. The survey data provide a good overview, although the European questionnaire excludes occupational accidents, so the picture is not complete. In the COVID 19 pandemic, there were shifts in accident occurrence, e.g., the official traffic accident statistics report significantly fewer traffic fatalities. An analysis of the separate survey months is planned, because in a good half of them there were containment measures - to varying degrees.