Citation

Pan American Health Organization. Epidemiol. Bull. 2004; 25(1): 2-5.

Affiliation

Pan American Health Organization

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, PAHO)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

15362208

Abstract

Deaths from road traffic injuries (RTI), and in particular Motor Vehicle Traffic Accidents (MVTA) have been characterized worldwide as a hidden epidemic which affects all sectors of society.1,2 An estimated 1.26 million people worldwide died in 2000 from RTI, 90% of them in low and middle-income countries. In 2000, the road traffic injury mortality rate for the world was 20.8 per 100,000 population (30.8 in males, 11.0 in females). In the Americas, it was of 26.7 for males and 8.4 for females. The Americas bear 11% of the burden of road traffic injury mortality.3 Globally traffic deaths and injuries on health and society have an enormous cost estimated at around 1- 2% of a country’s GNP in lower income countries. The theme for this year’s World Health Day (WHD), celebrated on 7 April, was Road Safety when the growing problem of worldwide road traffic deaths and injuries was highlighted and a global initiative on road safety and road traffic injury prevention presented.

In the Americas during 1997-2000, mortality from all land transport accidents was the tenth leading cause of death in the general population, the 6th leading cause in males with an annual average of registered deaths of 77,820 and the 16th in females, with 24,702 deaths5. The importance of the burden of death from land transport accidents, especially among younger age groups, is further noted in that they are the 2nd leading cause of potential years of life lost (YPLL) to 75 years of age overall (annual average of 4.2 million years) and in the male population (annual average of 3.2 million years) and 5th among females (annual average of 1.0 million years) over the same period.

Full report available at: http://www.paho.org/english/dd/ais/be_v25n1-acctransito.htm