World Health Day 2004 focuses on road traffic injuries and measures to prevent them under the slogan “Road Safety Is No Accident.” Road safety does not happen accidentally, but requires deliberate efforts by government, communities and other partners.
Road safety has become a major public health concern. Road traffic crashes are on the rise and are forecast to become the third major cause of losing productive years by 2020.
The burden of road traffic crashes is borne by the health sector. At some point most doctors must deal with the adverse human health outcome of road collisions. They see people die or become disabled for life. In addition to the resultant staggering rates of death, injury and disability, road traffic crashes pose a major drain on health and health care system resources.
The role of the health sector goes beyond immediate care and rehabilitation to include prevention, monitoring and evaluation, and foremost, promotion of better health. The health sector should assume an advocacy role for improvement of policies and promotion of specific proven interventions based on evidence gathered through research and surveillance. This can only be achieved through strong collaboration among various stakeholders nationally, regionally and globally to fight a growing epidemic that is claiming thousands of lives every day.
