Citation

Tiwari G. Int. J. Inj. Control Safe. Promot. 2020; 27(2): 97-98.

Affiliation

Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/17457300.2020.1757903

PMID

32366197

Abstract

At the time of going to press, the world is reeling in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic, and the subject of safety is uppermost on everybody’s mind. Many countries have reported drastic reductions in injuries involving car crashes in the last three weeks. Most of the countries have imposed restrictions on movements and have declared total or partial ‘lockdowns’ during this period. This unprecedented situation across the world has posed new health challenges not experienced or anticipated by anyone. The drastic reduction in traffic injuries should not come as a surprise, since the number of motorised vehicles and other road users have drastically been reduced in this period. However, there are many questions to be answered by researchers on injuries and the adverse impact on health in times of drastic reduction in mobility and economic activities across the globe. We look forward to publishing these studies in our future issues.

The current issue presents a number of studies that contribute much to our common discourse of evidence based research. The submissions range from the WHO in Switzerland, to the countries of Malaysia, the Sultanate of Oman, Kuwait, Poland, Iran, USA, China, India, Spain, Colombia, Serbia, Brazil, Rwanda, and the Czech Republic. It is heartening to note that some of the contributions in the present issue are the joint work of researchers coming together from different countries.

Kaycem Laych, et al., from the World Health Organization in Switzerland, have made a presentation on the urgent need for all countries to improve civil registration data collection on road traffic mortality, as the present state of affairs leaves much to be desired. In order to better perform their tasks, they should adopt a consistent definition of ‘road traffic death’; this is of the utmost importance in recording details in police databases. They should link civil registration records, police data and insurance data. At present, this is a practice followed only in a few countries. It is important to note that the civil registration and vital statistics systems (CRVS) generate records of all officially registered deaths and are not time-limited ...


Keywords: CoViD-19-Road-Traffic

Language: en