A Global Public Health Crisis

A Global Public Health Crisis
Requiring a Global Response

Road traffic injuries are a hidden global epidemic affecting millions of human lives and costing billions of dollars in economic costs every year. They are a particular burden on the poorest people and countries.

A hidden epidemic of deaths and injuries from road traffic crashes is growing in the world today. The World Health Organization estimates that, each year, almost 1.2 million people die in road crashes worldwide and as many as 50 million are injured or disabled. Every month a silent tsunami wave of road traffic crashes sweeps away 100,000 lives. For developing countries
in particular, road traffic deaths and injuries represent a serious and rapidly worsening public health crisis.

More than eighty five per cent of all road traffic deaths and injuries occur in low income and middle income countries. The injury/mortality rates per 100,000 population differ by region (Fig 1) with Africa enduring the world’s highest rates per population and most dangerous roads, but South East Asia experiencing the highest number of actual fatalities and injuries and the highest predicted growth in road traffic injuries.

Road traffic deaths and injuries (RTIs) impose a huge economic burden on developing economies, amounting to 1-2% of GNP in most countries (Figure 2). These costs, some $64.5 billion1 - $100 billion2, are comparable with the total bilateral overseas aid contributed by the industrialised countries, which amounted to $106.5 billion in 20053. These estimates take account only of the direct economic costs – mainly lost productivity – rather than the full social costs often recognised by industrialised countries. There is also the direct impact on health services, with road traffic victims accounting for almost half the hospital bed occupancy in surgical wards in some low income and middle income countries.