A Global Prototype for Traffic Injury Surveillance System

Without increased effort and new initiatives, the total number of road traffic deaths and injuries worldwide could rise by some 65 percent between 2000 and 2020, while deaths in low and middle income countries are expected to increase by 80 percent. Hence prevention is the best remedy for this global public health problem. For the effective prevention of road traffic injuries, accurate information on modes, patterns and trends of traffic injuries are mandatory. WHO is encouraging the establishment of such data collection systems by publishing guidelines on injury surveillance. We compared the data fields of the existing traffic injury surveillance systems of the Asian countries of Thailand, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Japan with WHO guidelines and examined the possibilities of compiling a global database. Although the surveillance systems of these four countries share a lot of similarities, there are variations in code choices. In spite of such variations, RTI data can be integrated into a common global data bases by applying information technology.