Save the date: 17th November 2019!
Why? Because road victims will be remembered that day. Starting from 2005, The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims is held on the third Sunday of November each year to remember those who died or were injured from road crashes (1).
Road traffic injuries kill more than 1.35 million people every year and they are the number one cause of death among 15–29-year-olds. There are also over 50 million people who are injured in non-fatal crashes every year. These also cause a real economic burden. Total cost of injuries is as high as 5% of GDP in some low- and middle-income countries and cost 3% of gross domestic product (2). It is also important to note that there has been no reduction in the number of road traffic deaths in any low-income country since 2013.
Emergency care for injury has pivotal importance in improving the post-crash response. “Effective care of the injured requires a series of time-sensitive actions, beginning with the activation of the emergency care system, and continuing with care at the scene, transport, and facility-based emergency care” as outlined in detail in World Health Organization’s (WHO) Post-Crash Response Booklet.
As we know, the majority of deaths after road traffic injuries occur in the first hours following the accident. Interventions performed during these “golden hours” are considered to have the most significant impact on mortality and morbidity. Therefore, having an advanced emergency medical response system in order to make emergency care effective is highly essential for countries.
Various health components are used to assess the development of health systems by country. Where a country is placed in these parameters also shows the level of overall development of that country. WHO states that 93% of the world’s fatalities related to road injuries occur in low-income and middle-income countries, even though these countries have approximately 60% of the world’s vehicles. This statistic shows that road traffic injuries may be considered as one of the “barometer”s to assess the development of a country’s health system. If a country has a high rate of road traffic injuries, that may clearly demonstrate the country has deficiencies of health management as well as infrastructure, education and legal deficiencies.
WHO is monitoring progress on road safety through global status reports. Its’ global status report on road safety 2018 presents information on road safety from 175 countries (3).
We have studied the statistics presented in the report and made two maps (All countries and High-income countries) illustrating the road accident death rate by country (per 100,000 population). You can view these works below (click on images to view full size).
References and Further Reading
- Official website of The World Day of Remembrance, https://worlddayofremembrance.org
- WHO. Road traffic injuries – https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffic-injuries
- WHO. Global status report on road safety 2018 – https://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2018/en/
