Abstract
May 15-21, 2023 is Global Road Safety Week hosted by the World Health Organization to raise awareness about road safety and opportunities for prevention. Lifestyle practitioners and health care providers can contribute to these efforts in many ways from counseling patients to change risky behaviors to supporting efforts to improve pre-hospital trauma care.
Developing economies record higher rates of road traffic injuries, with 93% of fatalities coming from low- and middle-income countries.
In October 2005, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly 1 officially approved the creation of the Global Road Safety Week to provide a platform for global and regional activities and to raise awareness about road safety issues, including road safety risks and preventive interventions (https://www.who.int/health-topics/road-safety#tab=tab_1). Road safety includes a wide variety of risks and interventions that affect traffic injuries related to drivers, passengers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists on the road.
This year the 7th UN Global Road Safety Week takes place May 15-21, 2023. Hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO), it aims to raise awareness about road safety and accident prevention. Road traffic crashes are a major cause of death among all age groups and result in the deaths of approximately 1.3 million people around the world. In addition, between 20 and 50 million people are left with non-fatal injuries. More than half of all road traffic deaths and injuries involve vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists and their passengers.
The first UN Global Road Safety Week in 2007 was themed ‘Youth Road Safety’. It was specifically aimed at youth because global data show that young people are overrepresented in road traffic crashes. Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5–29.
Young males under 25 years are more likely to be involved in road traffic crashes than females, with 73% of all road traffic deaths occurring among young males in that age. Developing economies record higher rates of road traffic injuries, with 93% of fatalities coming from low- and middle-income countries.
In addition to the human suffering caused by road traffic injuries, they also incur a heavy economic burden on victims and their families, both through treatment costs for the injured and through loss of productivity of those killed or disabled. More broadly, road traffic injuries have a serious impact on national economies, costing countries 3% of their annual gross domestic product.
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Lifestyle practitioners can contribute to Global Road Safety Week by: • Encouraging all drivers and passengers to wear their seat belts on every trip, every time • Encouraging parents and caregivers to ensure children are properly buckled in a car seat, booster seat, or seat belt – whichever is appropriate for their age, weight, and height. Keep children under age 13 properly buckled in the back seat. • Counseling drivers to avoid alcohol use, even in small quantities before they drive, and refusing to be a passenger with a driver who has been drinking. • Reminding bicyclists and motorcycle drivers and riders to always wear an approved helmet. • Assessing and recording traffic risk and protective factors regularly when counseling patients and their families, and include these risk factor assessments in electronic health records and chart reviews. • Conducting annual patient medication reviews to assess polypharmacy and drug interactions that might affect driving, particularly for older adults who commonly take multiple medications. • Reminding patients who are traveling overseas of the elevated traffic crash risks inherent in road travel in some low- and middle-income countries. • Supporting efforts to strengthen Comprehensive Trauma Systems to improve pre-hospital care.
Other proven measures to reduce the risk of road traffic injuries and deaths exist in 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/) and the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 (https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/global-plan-for-the-decade-of-action-for-road-safety-2021-2030) both of which have set ambitious targets for reducing road traffic injuries worldwide. A set of reproducible campaign materials directed towards employers is also available from the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety (NETS) (https://trafficsafety.org/un/resources/).
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.