Assessing the impact of the WHO Global Status Reports on Road Safety

Abstract

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Since 2000, the WHO has produced a series of Global reports to monitor the burden of road traffic incidents and road safety interventions. The fifth and latest Global Status Report on Road Safety was released in December 2023. This manuscript reviews the stated objectives for these reports and provides an assessment of their achievement. Whenever appropriate, we compare the burden and progress in preventive or curative interventions of three other health conditions with comparable numbers of deaths and for which similar WHO reports exist. We conclude with recommendations for future road safety status reports. These include covering private sector actors, creating a standard definition for non-fatal injuries, commissioning new research to determine additional best practice legislation, refining some UN voluntary performance target indicators, producing country profiles for all WHO member states and enhancing communications and advocacy.