WHO Road Safety Manual for Decision Makers and Practitioners

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WHO Road Safety Manual for Decision Makers and Practitioners

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Worl Health Organization (WHO ) Executive summary
  • Road transport is vital to development. Unfortunately, inadequate attention to safety has meant that road transport systems have developed in ways that have led to significant loss of lives, health and wealth. Reliable and accurate data are needed to raise awareness about the magnitude of road traffic injuries, and to convince policy-makers of the need for action.
  • Reliable and accurate data are also needed to correctly identify problems, risk factors and priority areas, and to formulate strategy, set targets and monitor performance. Ongoing, data-led diagnosis and management of the leading road traffic injury problems enables appropriate action and resource allocation. Without this, there will be no significant, sustainable reductions in exposure to crash risk or in the severity of crashes.
  • Data relevant to road safety are collected every day in most countries, but for these data to be useful for informing road safety practice, they must be properly coded, processed and analysed in a computerized database system. The purpose of this manual is to give practical guidance on establishing data systems that produce timely, reliable data on road traffic injuries that can be used to inform road safety management.
  • The manual begins with a discussion of why good data are important for road safety management, and what kinds of data are required for effective planning and monitoring. It guides users through the process of conducting a situational assessment to identify relevant stakeholders, existing data sources and systems (along with their strengths and limitations), the needs of end-users, and relevant political factors and resource availability. It then describes the steps needed to establish a working group and use the situational assessment to choose the best course of action.
  • The manual also describes a range of strategies for improving data quality and strengthening the performance of systems already in place, and describes the steps needed to plan, design and implement a new system – noting that there is no single approach that will be right for every country or jurisdiction. A common dataset with minimum data elements and definitions is proposed. Finally, the manual guides the user on how to disseminate road safety data and maximize the likelihood of its use, and on how to use the data to improve road safety, monitor results and assess the impact of interventions.
  • In preparing the material for this manual, the writers have drawn on case studies from around the world. Whenever possible, examples from low- and middle-income countries have been used to illustrate various issues. While the focus of the manual is on national-level data systems, the strategies presented can be applied at the local level. It is hoped that the modular structure of this manual means it can be easily adapted to suit the needs and problems of individual countries
Summary
  • Road safety is a critical public policy issue. Good data are needed to raiser awareness about the magnitude of road traffic injuries and to convince policy-makers of the need for action.
  • Effective road safety management requires data that users can rely on for accuracy, to define road safety problems, identify risks, formulate strategy and develop interventions, set targets and monitor performance.
  • Data relevant to road safety are collected every day in most countries, but these data are not useful for informing road safety practice unless they are properly coded, processed and analysed in a computerized database system.
    Road crash data systems should process information in a way that allows for analysis at an aggregate level and facilitates data-driven action. At a minimum, good road crash data systems should:
    • capture nearly all crashes that result in death and a significant proportion of those that result in serious injuries;
    • provide adequate detail on the vehicle, the road user and the road/environment to assist with identification of causes, and selection of countermeasures;
    • include accurate crash location information;
    • provide reliable output in a timely manner to facilitate evidence-based decisions.
  • Comprehensive assessment and monitoring of road safety performance requiresr mechanisms for data collection and analysis that cover not only road traffic deaths and injuries (final outcomes), but also exposure measures (e.g. traffic volume, number of licensed drivers), intermediate outcomes (e.g. seat-belt wearing rates), outputs (e.g. number of citations issued for traffic violations, population covered by seat-belt wearing campaign) and socio-economic costs associated with road traffic injuries,
  • Various sectors require road safety related data for their daily functioning. Understanding the roles and data needs of each of the main sectors involved (law enforcement, transport, health) is helpful background information for conducting a situational assessment