23 to April 29, 2007
WORLD FIRST WEEK OF ROAD SAFETY WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
Within-year WHO strategy for prevention Injury Road Traffic (WHO/NMH/VIP/01.03) requests the Director General of the United Nations to consider jointly with other intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, the means to:
developing appropriate standards relating to the medical aspect of licenses of driving.
develop programs, educational and other, more effective policies to encourage responsible use of vehicles and roads.
promoting and coordinating further research on human and medical factors included in road accidents.
The World Day of Health in 2004, 7 April, was devoted to the prevention of vehicle collision injuries, with the theme "Road Safety Is No Accident" is carried out worldwide, hundreds of activities to promote awareness about the trauma caused by traffic accidents, their grave consequences and enormous costs pose to society.
This year, 2007, devoted the week of 23 to 29 April at promoting road safety, one of their targets for interventions aimed at preventing injuries to children and young people account for much of the approximately 1.2 million people die on roads each year.
WHO proposed as priority areas of intervention, aimed at increasing awareness of the impact of traffic injuries, particularly among young road users, promote action around the factors with the greatest impact on Injury traffic helmets, seat belts, driving under the influence of alcohol, speeding and road design and infrastructure.
Therefore, THE COMPANY BUSINESS HEALTH COMMISSION FOR THE PREVENTION OF TRAFFIC INJURIES deemed to participate in this week passing on to all its members from the important role the health sector must play in preventing injuries through vial health council, aimed at raising awareness and sensitize the population about the risk factors involved in the causation of these lesions.
WHO to encourage and promote interventions in this week released the following messages:
1. Injuries traffic injuries are a major problem of public health and development in the world. Forecast, its magnitude will increase significantly in coming years.
2. The road traffic injuries have a major impact on the lives of young people.
3. The road traffic injuries are preventable.
4. Road safety is no accident.
5. International collaboration is essential to strengthen national efforts related to highway safety.
To understand the magnitude of the problem simply a review of data and results showing the effects of problems of health from vehicle collisions.
First is a public health problem worldwide and so find the following figures:
• in the twentieth century resulted in: - 35 million deaths.
- 1,500 million wounded. • Every year
are responsible for 1.2 million deaths.
• Every day 3,000 people die as a result of traffic.
· Of all deaths worldwide to 2.2% of them are attributed to traffic. Coming up to 25% when limited to those of traumatic origin and 2.8% of the causes of disability.
• A 40% of these deaths occur in people under 25.
• A 60% of the disabling consequences of traffic affects people younger than 45 years.
· Inexpensive, the overall cost amounts to about $ 518,000 million distributed differently depending on the level of development of each country. Thus, the cost in developing countries stood at 1% of GDP, 1.5% in the case of medium-developed countries and even EL2% for countries with the highest level.
is important to understand the importance of international collaboration as more than 90% of victims are located in countries with a lower level of development, which makes etiologic mechanisms also differ depending on the level of development. Thus, in countries less developed the victims belong to cyclists, motorists, pedestrians and users of public vehicles, while in the higher level of development affects private vehicle drivers and passengers.
forecasts are not encouraging, because if in 2005 the WHO placed the injuries caused by traffic as the ninth leading cause of morbidity and mortality by 2020 is expected to reach third.
If we transfer the problem to our environment, the European Union, we find figures that do not allow optimism, with the injuries caused by traffic charge each year:
· 50,000 deaths.
· 3,500,000 wounded.
· 150,000 disabled.
· 20,000 families affected.
• In terms of under 14 years: - 1,000 deaths.
- 80,000 wounded.
Closing the circle of influence, situation in Spain, found that maintaining the tragic consequences of injuries caused by traffic. In 2005 census stood at 29.5615.103 vehicles including mopeds (2,311,773) and the drivers came to the drivers 23,621,906 (2,072,429 driver's licenses.) With all this occurred as a result of traffic injuries:
91,187 traffic accidents (ie, more than 249 accidents per day)
4,442 deaths (ie, more than 12 deaths / day).
132,809 injured (ie, over 363 injured per day or more than 15 injured / hour).
10% of hospital beds are occupied by victims of trafficking.
Within the scope of the English mortality traffic injuries involve:
• The leading cause of death in children under 40 years.
• The fifth cause of mortality.
• The leading cause of traumatic spinal cord injury.
• The leading cause of disability.
• The leading cause of mortality external cause.
Finally, to test the consequences for young people in our country have the injuries caused by vehicle collisions is sufficient to compare the following data:
° each 100 citizens à 12 young.
° each to 11 100 drivers are young. --------------------
° each à 22 100 deaths are young.
° each 100 wounded and 26 are young.
The proposals for action by the WHO are directed towards the awareness and awareness of the importance of the following factors involved in the causation of injuries from vehicle collisions:
Speeding:
In most countries, speed is one of the main factors implicated in the causation of injuries. Being so young, and in particular men, the most likely to lead to excessive or inappropriate speeds.
has been shown to reduce 1 km / h in average speed reduces fatal crashes between 4% and 5%. Considered a preventive measure not only for vehicle users but also for pedestrians.
In Spain speeding as a factor involved in a collision is present in 15%. However, it reaches up to 29% for fatal crashes.
-driving effects of alcohol:
alcohol consumption increases both the likelihood of a collision and the severity of injuries.
young male drivers with blood alcohol> to 0.5 g / l, with at least five times more likely to suffer a crash than drivers aged 30 years under the same conditions.
In Spain, according to results from the National Institute of Toxicology, over 30% of drivers killed exceeded the permitted blood alcohol level of 0.5 g / l. The association of alcohol with psychoactive drugs / drugs / medicines are detected in more than 7% of these drivers killed.
Seat Belts:
has been found The Young male drivers use seat belts less than other groups.
Use the seat belt can reduce the risk of injury in any collision from 40% to 50% and 60% in fatal collisions.
In Spain, 36% of road deaths were not wearing the belt and this percentage rises to 42% for the urban environment.
child safety devices:
has found that child safety devices, such as infant and child seats and booster seats are very effective in preventing deaths among infants and young children traveling in automobiles.
Proper use of child safety devices can reduce the mortality rate by 71% in infants and 54% in young children.
In Spain, over 59% of deaths under age 14 were passengers in a vehicle, while 30% died as a pedestrian, and the rest as bicycle or moped driver.
Helmets:
Wearing a helmet is the most effective way to reduce the risk of head injury or death due to a collision of motorcycle, moped or bicycle.
head injury risk is reduced to 70% by the use of helmets for motorcycle riders and motorcycles.
In Spain of motorists not wearing a helmet died 11% of road crashes and 18% in urban areas. But if these data we moped users are reached much higher percentages, up to 45% of fatalities not wearing a helmet.
