Journal of Local and Global Health Science - Proceedings of the 24th World International Traffic Medicine Association Congress, Qatar 2015, November 2015

Helmets save lives, yet many countries do not have laws about their quality assessment or how they should be worn. We assessed the effectiveness of helmet use in preventing injuries in such a setting. The data were extracted from a large road traffic injury surveillance study in Karachi, Pakistan. We assessed the association of wearing helmets with several injury outcomes including deaths, injury severity (via New Injury Severity Score, NIS Read More

Significant reductions in road trauma among young drivers could be achieved if they drove safer vehicles. Parents are likely to play a critical role in the access, timing of vehicle purchase, available budget, and vehicle choice for the young driver’s first vehicle. However, little attention has been directed to understanding the most effective communication strategies to encourage young drivers and their parents to purchase and use safe vehicles. Read More

Speeding remains a major contributor to trauma on our roads, held to be a major factor in around one-third of fatal crashes and over 10 percent of all crashes (Bowie & Walz, 1994; Fildes & Lee, 1993). This study reviewed speed management strategies and key factors that should be considered through a comprehensive review of the literature. One of the most frequently used methods of managing travel speeds is the posted speed limit. The Read More

Around schools, increases in walking and cycling help to reduce traffic congestion and improve the road safety and neighborhood navigation skills of children. Physical activity and independent mobility may also have a positive effect on children’s behavioural and cognitive development. Child pedestrians, however, are a vulnerable road user groups, experiencing an increased crash and injury risk relative to older pedestrians, consti Read More

The Department of Transport (DoT) in Abu Dhabi has recognised that while minibuses play a key role in transporting people within the United Arab Emirates, levels of fatal and serious injury among minibus occupants in crashes are high. As a first step toward addressing this problem, the DoT commissioned a benchmarking study to gain an understanding of the state of the minibus fleet, focusing on fundamental vehicle safety aspe Read More

Controlling the speed of vehicles on various roads and streets is crucial in order to maintain the safety of people and to prevent any possibility of injury or death. One technique that is widely used in Qatar to force road users to reduce their vehicles’ speed is the installation of speed humps and tables. In this study, an evaluation of speed humps and tables in selected areas of Qatar was conducted, since they vary in shape and size and many c Read More

Since 2010, Sweden presents suicides in road traffic separately from fatalities caused by accidents. The aim with this study was to assess the number of road traffic suicides by studying the fatality from three angles; the vehicle, the road and the road user. The main focus was to develop and perform a psychosocial examination of the road user. First, a method was developed for classification of road fatalities to determine if they were cause Read More

Not all fatalities in road traffic are accidents; some are suicides. Since 2010, Sweden have been presenting suicides in road traffic separately from fatalities caused by accidents. To carry out this task a method has been developed for classification of road traffic fatalities in order to determine if the fatality was caused by accident or suicide. A five-grade classification scale was developed. Grade one indicated a clear suicide and grade five Read More

The aim of this study was to determine the incidence pattern of the burden severe traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) among young children in Qatar and to suggest practical prevention policies that can be implemented in Qatar. This is a retrospective study that included all pediatric cases of severe TBI during the period from January 2002 to December 2008. The study was conducted among children aged 14 years or less at the Children Rehabilitati Read More

An increasing part of the global population holds a driver’s license. Thus, a greater variety of prerequisites regarding the fitness to drive will occur, increasing the demand for assessing fitness to drive. However, today, there is a lack of internationally agreed upon methods for assessing the fitness to drive. Specifically, there is a need to develop methods to assess cognitive abilities required for driving safely (Hird, Vetivelu, Saposnik, & Schw Read More

Providing safe roads around schools is a challenge faced by all communities. Children’s behaviour is unpredictable and their safety is of particular concern in an area where there is often a mix of vulnerable road users and motor vehicles. In 2011, Ashghal commissioned a major road safety contract to conduct road safety assessments at 200 schools throughout Qatar. The results have since been collated into a comprehensive school safet Read More

Road traffic accidents are an emerging public health problem. The deaths due to road traffic injuries represent only a small fraction of the total waste of human and social resources. Road traffic injuries leading to disabilities are often neglected part of the problem. In the year of 2010, it was reported 2721 have died and 26487 have sustained injuries due to road traffic accidents. Sri Lanka being a middle income country, the information on disabi Read More

Driving is a visually demanding task (Kotecha, Spratt and Viswanathan, 2008). Does individuals with visual deficits fulfill the “Fitness to drive” criteria? The developed simulator based method presented below was driven by the purpose to be able to discriminate between individuals with and without visual deficits. (Owsley, Wood, and McGwin, 2015). An advanced driving simulator was used to develop a simulated driving task, which also in Read More

Backgrounds: Pre-hospital emergency call is a crucial index to indicate emergency disease spectrum. For Beijing, which has changed greatly in economy and population, analyzing the trend of the emergency disease spectrum can greatly contribute to formulate the pre-hospital emergency planning. Methods: In this 10-year retrospective study, pre-hospital emergency records of Beijing Emergency Medical Center from 2003 to 2012 were c Read More

Objective: This study aims to evaluate the effects of standardization processes in improving severe trauma treatments in China. Methods: This study was conducted in 12 hospitals located in 12 geographically and industrially different cities in China. A standard process on severe trauma rescue was established as a general rule for staff training and patient treatment. A regional network (system) efficiently integrating pre-hospital rescue, Read More

This research considers a Bayesian analysis of crash data in an attempt to predict, from a group of potential collision hotspot sites, which of these sites could benefit from treatment with a road safety scheme. Intrinsic to the analysis is the identification of trend and site-specific regression to the mean (RTM) effects. As in a standard retrospective before-after study to evaluate the effectiveness of a change in e.g. the geometric design of an i Read More

Road traffic injuries (RTI) are the leading cause of death in Qatar with one in eight deaths from all causes due to RTIs. Furthermore, motor vehicle crashes (MVC) are becoming a growing public health problem and the use of seatbelt is universally low throughout the nation. The aim of our study was to investigate and highlight potential socio-demographic risk factors that contribute to seatbelt non-compliance. A prospective cross-sectional Read More

Hearing loss (HL) is one of the most frequent sensory deficit in humans (Stevens et al., 2013), which might reduce traffic safety. The prevalence of age-related HL is increasing (Roth et al., 2001), and as a consequence the number of road users with HL will also increase. The effects of HL on traffic safety have been investigated and the use of tactile support systems has been evaluated both in a driving simulator and in real traffic. Tactile suppo Read More

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are number one reason for human mortality around the world (Fig. 1) [1]. Pulse pressure (PP) and pulse rate (PR) are considered as the two most vital physiological markers for CVDs like myocardial infarction, cardiac arrhythmia, and heart failure. Currently, long-term PP and PR analysis is not possible due to the lack of systems that can frequently measure the data over a period of time. Motor vehicle drivers w Read More

In a report by the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region(1), the non-use of child restraints for children was identified as a key risk factor that can be addressed by the adoption and enforcement of legislation that will increase their use. Currently, there are no child restraint laws in Qatar. The objective of the study is to report baseline data on child restraint use and to provide evidence to inform the passage of child passenger restraint laws i Read More