Every year 1,7 million road casualties, of which 46,000 are fatal, are recorded on EU roads. With reference to the three main sources of information available (the police, the medical profession, and insurance companies), we have extracted epidemiological results for this important public health issue, taking into account the relevance of this approach in terms of its exhaustiveness and representativeness. Finally, referring to different ad hoc aetiological and evaluative research, we have put forward some ideas on the possible contribution that epidemiology could make in view of a better understanding of road traffic accidents. Given that current research is co-ordinated at a EU-level, we have confined our analysis to the 15 member states of the EU. (A)
Abstract