There are some typical locations of low–energy osteoporosis-related fractures. One of the most challenging is a fracture of the hip1. This injury is a threat to the life of patients in orthopedic departments because of the high mortality rate2. To lower it, patients need to be referred to the hospital immediately and undergo surgery as soon as possible3.

Moreover, the stay at the hospital, surgery, and recovery to independence in everyday life is very demanding both for the healthcare system and for the families4. The cost of treatment is very high5,6. Dealing with patients requires a lot of involvement from family members and neighbors. Very often those injuries cause the transfer of the patients to a nursing home due to a lack of family or lack of possibility of taking care of this kind of patient at home7. This situation is very frequent in Poland. Moreover, the elderly often do not have family (especially children, grandchildren, etc.) or their descendants work abroad.

All those problems cause the observation of the number of hip fractures is very important to prepare the health and social care system to deal with this challenge.

According to the literature, the incidence of hip fractures in Poland was not very high in the previous decade. In comparison to other countries, according to data published in 2012 by Kanis, Poland was in the group of countries with a moderate risk for hip fracture8. However, our latest observation, which showed the situation between 2002 and 2014 raised concerns9,10. The number of fractures systematically increased from 78 to 162 cases per year in the study area, both in men and women (3.6- and 1.8-fold, respectively, compared to the year 2002). The IRR (incidence rate ratio) increased to 1.53 (95% CI 1.1–2.1) in 2014. The increase in the incidence rate of hip fractures was meaningful. In the following years, the situation was a little bit better because of changes in epidemiology related to the COVID -19 pandemic impact11,12.

These disturbing data prompted us to continue our previous research. The new project was called HiPol Study (a portmanteau word – that combined hip and Poland). We intend to check if the long-term trend of the number of hip fractures remained constant or if something changed especially in the aspect of the COVID -19 pandemic. Nowadays, we extended the follow-up period to twenty years, because in our country there is no so long study, that shows the trend and changes in the number of hip fractures.

Moreover, in the area of ​​a given voivodeship, we also observed the disturbing trend of reducing the number of „orthopedic” beds – from 1,795 in 2010 (first available data) to 1,298 in 2021 (last available data) despite the aging of the Polish population13.

It is very important to observe the occurrence of hip fractures because it helps to take best care of the patients e.g. by providing an adequate number of hospital beds, staff, etc. So the aim of this study was:

to estimate the incidence and trend of hip fractures in the population of females and males aged 50 or older in the district of Tarnowskie Góry and the city of Piekary Śląskie during the last 20 years, from 2002 to 2021,

to compare the real data from 2020 and our predictions from the previous article10,

to make the new projection of hip fractures for the local area till the year 2050

(number of fractures and incidence rate with 95% CI).