Global Road Traffic Injury Epidemic

Road Traffic Injuries are responsible for a global health burden similar to malaria and tuberculosis. Tuberculosis and Malaria are in the international global agenda and receive enough attention in media and political community, but Road Traffic Injuries are ignored by most of health policy makers and it doesn't receive enough attention even from academia.

During my study at the school of public health, rarely I heard anything about this important problem that most likely beats the developing countries. One of the reason may related to the lack of research funding and attention, while you can sell your idea about fighting malaria, Tuberculosis or HIV/AIDS easily to donor agencies, why you spend your time and efforts to work on something that suffers from lack of attention and of course funding.

The other reason for ignoring this problem is related to the nature of the problem, the road traffic injuries as a problem, is difficult to address or even understand the roots in any given geo-political context. It is not a kind of "101 problem" it needs a multi stakeholder and multi dimensional approach, which is not common in most health settings in most countries.

Talking about the RTIs, also draw attention to the car industries, it means car industries have to spend a lot of money to deal with safety that is not a case in most countries with lack of resources, also related governmental authorities involved in industries can influence safety ignorance for making more profits.

I think this is the responsibility of new generation of practice based public health policy makers to force global community, governments, car industries and other stakeholders to pay attention on this major and growing public health problem.