The need for road safety education in developing countries is enormous in view of the growing challenge of road traffic injuries in these countries. The need ranges from specialized training to general public knowledge. Systematic data collection, analysis and dissemination are weak in these countries. Linkage between data sources is also weak. Although there is a growing group of road safety experts, a number lack relevant research skills and competence in project implementation, policy advocacy and proposal writing. At the policy level, there is general lack of awareness and knowledge on the magnitude and impacts of road traffic injuries. This paper presents the World Health Organization (WHO) strategy on road traffic injury prevention, which has educational and outreach components. Educational activities in the WHO strategy are focused on development of guidelines (surveillance, good practice, trauma care), conducting studies, training of experts, development of curriculum on injuries for schools of public health, dissemination of information (fact sheets, research reports, interactive CDs), support for short courses, improvement in data collection and analysis and giving technical support. Overall, we note that capacity building is important for effective implementation of road safety interventions in these countries. This calls for enhancement of training in such key areas as epidemiology, pre-hospital care, emergency, surveillance, policy analysis and advocacy. There is an urgent need for increased funding for this training. Furthermore, there is need for road safety educational programme to be integrated in the entire road traffic injury prevention activities. Education and knowledge, on their own, may not bring about behavioural change. Hence, the need to make educational programmes to be part and parcel of other interventions. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135448.
Abstract