FIA Foundation using burden of disease data to make streets safer for youth in Africa
Published June 21, 2017
The FIA Foundation’s recent report, “Step Change: An Action Agenda on Safe Walking for Africa’s Children,” uses data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study to highlight the high burden of road traffic injuries among children in sub-Saharan Africa. The FIA Foundation is a UK-based charity that promotes road safety, the environment, and sustainable transport, and funds research on motor sport safety.
Image shown in FIA Foundation report, “Step Change: An Action Agenda on Safe Walking for Africa’s Children”
The FIA Foundation uses GBD data to emphasize the importance of promoting road safety, writing that “more than 85,000 African children and youth are killed or seriously injured on the continent’s roads each year – a top five cause of death for the over-fives in many African countries.” The report is a call to address sub-Saharan Africa’s road traffic injury epidemic. Another recent report by the FIA Foundation, “Speed Kills Children. Use the Vaccine. #Slowdown,” uses similar GBD estimates to advocate for policies that decrease traffic speed, a strategy for preventing child deaths due to road traffic injuries.
Image shown in FIA Foundation report, “Speed Kills Children. Use the Vaccine. #Slowdown”
The FIA Foundation uses GBD data to justify their mission to ensure “safe, clean, fair, and green mobility for all.” Road traffic injuries become an increasingly important cause of death among children as they age, as highlighted in another report published by the organization, entitled Speed Kills Children. Use the Vaccine. #Slowdown.
Meanwhile, road traffic injuries are among the top five causes of death for people ages 15 to 49 in less developed countries, indirectly impacting children. “Many more children have their life journey disrupted or set on a downward trajectory through loss or injury of a family breadwinner,” noted the Foundation.
Globally, approximately 1.4 million people died from road traffic injuries in 2015. The Sustainable Development Goals set out to cut the burden of death and disability from road traffic injuries in half by 2020. As organizations such as the FIA Foundation advocate for tangible action in promoting safe streets for the most vulnerable populations, they are finding that the GBD study is a powerful tool to highlight the importance and urgency of making roads safer.