fa عمومى General پژوهشي Research <p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Background:</strong> To reduce traffic injuries in the country, health professionals should have accurate&nbsp;estimates of road traffic deaths. Multiple and sometimes inconsistent statistics presented by&nbsp;organizations in charge create high degree of uncertainty for planners and decision makers.&nbsp;To achieve an accurate estimate, several methods are available. Of them, capture-recapture<br> method seems to be an appropriate and affordable method regarding the reliability of the data&nbsp;sources. This study aimed to estimate the number of road traffic deaths in Kurdistan Province&nbsp;during 2004-2009, using capture-recapture method and based on 2 sources of data obtained&nbsp;from Death Registration System and Forensic Medicine Department.<br> <strong>Materials and Methods:</strong> All deaths due to road traffic accidents in Kurdistan Province were&nbsp;extracted during 2004-2009. These deaths were legally registered in Death Registration System&nbsp;and Forensic Medicine Department. Shared cases among these 2 sources were identified based&nbsp;on full name, age, gender, and date of death and finally the accurate number of deaths was<br> calculated using the correct volume formula.<br> <strong>Results:</strong> During study period, Forensic Medicine Department of the province had registered&nbsp;about 3289 cases of road traffic mortalities and Death Registration System had registered&nbsp;3771 cases of death resulting from road traffic accidents. Using capture-recapture method, the&nbsp;number of deaths in the same years was estimated as 5726 people (5818-5634:CI95%). The<br> proportion of mortality registered in the Death Registration System and Forensic Medicine&nbsp;Department of the province to the total estimated deaths were 65.8% and 57.4%, respectively&nbsp;and both systems together covered 85.4% of road traffic deaths, i.e. under-reporting of about&nbsp;832 people.<br> <strong>Conclusion:</strong> The results of the present study indicate that none of 2 sources of Forensic&nbsp;Medicine Department and Death Registration System, per se or both, fully covered road traffic&nbsp;mortalities and using capture-recapture method can help estimate the actual number of deaths.</p> Capture-recapture, Traffic accidents, Mortality, Iran 147 154 http://hdq.uswr.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-25-6&slc_lang=fa&sid=1 Lida Gorgin gorgin.lida@yahoo.com Yes Department of Epidemiology, School of Medicine, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran. Shaker Salarilak No Department of Epidemiology, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran. Davood Khorasani-Zavareh No Department of Health in Disaster and Emergency, School of Health, Safety and Environment, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.