Road traffic deaths

The Global Health Observatory

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SDG Target 3.6 Halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents

In 2021, approximately 1.2 million fatalities resulted from road traffic crashes, marking a 5% decrease from the 1.25 million estimated in 2010. Over half of the Member States of the United Nations witnessed a decline in road traffic fatalities from 2010 to 2021. Despite the global motor vehicle fleet more than doubling, alongside significant expansions in road networks and a population surge of nearly a billion, there was a modest reduction in overall fatalities. This suggests that efforts aimed at enhancing road safety have yielded some success, albeit falling short of meeting the targets set by the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021–2030, which aims to halve fatalities by 2030. Road traffic crashes continue to pose a substantial global health and developmental challenge. As of 2019, road traffic crashes emerged as the leading cause of mortality among individuals aged 5 to 29 years, and ranked as the 12th leading cause of death across all age groups.

"Road traffic injuries can be prevented. Governments need to take action to address road safety in a holistic manner. This requires involvement from multiple sectors such as transport, police, health, education, and actions that address the safety of roads, vehicles, and road users."

"Effective interventions include designing safer infrastructure and incorporating road safety features into land-use and transport planning, improving the safety features of vehicles, improving post-crash care for victims of road crashes, setting and enforcing laws relating to key risks, and raising public awareness."

Road traffic injuries fact sheet

Summary findings

Road traffic deaths

1.2 million

people died in road traffic deaths globally in 2021, a rate of 15 road traffic deaths per 100 000 population

Vulnerable road users

56%

of those dying on the world’s roads are vulnerable road users and 92% of the deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries in 2021

Legislation

140

countries have legislation meeting WHO best practice for at least one of the five key risk factors for road traffic injuries; only seven countries have legislation on all five that meet best-practice criteria

Estimated road traffic death rate (per 100 000 population)

GHO RS_198 Estimated road traffic death rate MAP

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Road traffic deaths estimates

Table

Indicator name: 
 Road traffic deaths, number, estimate 
Indicator Id: 
 196 

Rationale:

According to Article 64 of its constitution, WHO is mandated to request each Member State to provide statistics on mortality. Furthermore, the WHO Nomenclature Regulations of 1967 affirms the importance of compiling and publishing statistics of mortality and morbidity in comparable form. Member States started to report mortality data to WHO since the early fifties and this reporting activity is continuing until today.

Road traffic injuries remain an important public health problem, particularly for low-income and middle income countries.

Definition:

Estimated number of deaths due to road traffic fatal injury in the specified year

Method of measurement

The methodology involved collecting data from a number of different sectors and stakeholders in each country is as follows. National Data Focal Points (NDFPs), who were nominated by their governments, were trained in the project methodology. As representatives of their ministries, they were required to identify up to eight other road safety experts within their country from different sectors (e.g. health, police, transport, nongovernmental organizations and/or academia) and to facilitate a consensus meeting of these respondents. While each expert responded to the questionnaire based on their expertise, the consensus meeting facilitated by NDFPs allowed for discussion of all responses, and the group used this discussion to agree on one final set of information that best represented their country’s situation at the time. This was then submitted to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Method of estimation:

The methods used for the analysis of causes of death depend on the type of data available from countries:

We categorized the countries into four groups as outlined below:

Group 1: Countries where death registration data completeness stood at a minimum of 80%, or where the average completeness over the decade, including the country-year, was 80% or higher. In this category, we relied on one of the following data sources: death registration, projections based on the latest death registration, reported deaths, or projected reported deaths.

Group 2: Countries with alternative sources of information regarding causes of death. Group 2 was further subdivided into two sub-groups: Group 2A and Group 2B.

Group 2A: This subset comprises countries that share death registration data with WHO but face certain limitations. These limitations may stem from insufficient data observations (less than 5), or data quality not meeting the standards for classification into Group 1. In such instances, WHO has assisted these countries in enhancing their data collection and estimation methods. Rather than relying solely on one data source, these countries have integrated data from multiple stakeholders. The capture-recapture method has been employed to estimate the number of road traffic deaths for a given year.

Group 2B: This subset consists of countries that are in the process of improving their systems for recording road traffic deaths. The completeness of death registration data, particularly regarding road traffic incident causes, is relatively low, approximately 30%. With support from WHO, these countries have undertaken data linkage efforts beyond relying solely on police records. These initiatives seem to concentrate on specific geographical areas, such as the capital city or districts within it. This approach could be due to resource constraints or a phased strategy for enhancing data collection and reporting.

Group 3: Countries with populations below 150,000 that lacked eligible death registration data. For these countries, directly reported deaths from surveys were utilized without adjustment.

Group 4: Countries without eligible death registration data. For these countries, a negative binomial regression model was employed. Further details on this process can be found in the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2023 (pp. 61-62).

Expected frequency of data collection:

Every 2 or 3 years

Contact person email:

Kacem Iaych

Name:

[email protected]

IMRID:

196

Limitations:

There are no vital registration data for all countries to make comparison against the data received on the survey. Also we cannot collect road traffic data every year using this methodology outlined in the Global status report.

Links:

Global status report on road safety 2023

Indicator Metadata Registry List

Estimated number of road traffic deaths

Road traffic deaths - Learn more

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