Abstract: Objective To investigate the epidemiological characteristics and associated risk factors of unintentional injuries among school-aged children and adolescents in the multi-ethnic regions of Yunnan Province, in order to provide a scientific basis for the formulation of effective prevention and control strategies. Methods A stratified random cluster sampling method was employed to conduct an epidemiological survey on unintentional injuries. The study population comprised students aged 8 to 16 years from ethnic minority areas in Yunnan Province, who were administered a self-designed questionnaire. Unconditional binary logistic regression analysis was utilized to identify the determinants of unintentional injuries. Results A total of 2 627 school-aged children and adolescents were recruited from the ethnic minority regions of Yunnan Province. The self-reported incidence rate of unintentional injuries was 71.22% (1 871 cases), with a male-to-female ratio of 1∶0.92. Students who had engaged in physical fighting in the past year (OR=1.71), those who frequently perceived high academic pressure (OR=1.55), those who had experienced persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness in the past year (OR=1.30), those who frequently felt lonely (OR=1.53), as well as those whose mothers were engaged in non-agricultural occupations (OR=1.27) and left-behind children (OR=1.21) were identified as independent risk factors for unintentional injury among school-aged children and adolescents in ethnic minority areas of Yunnan Province (P<0.05). Conclusion The problem of unintentional injury among school-aged children and adolescents in multi-ethnic regions require urgent attention. The prevention and control of unintentional injuries among children in ethnic areas should recommend to implement health education on unintentional injury prevention, psychological health interventions be concurrently integrated, thereby effectively reducing the risk and burden of unintentional injuries among children and adolescents in ethnic areas.

Key words: Students, Children, Adolescents, Unintentional injury, Epidemiology, Influence factors