JH-IIRU Supports Global Youth Traffic Safety Month

May is Global Youth Traffic Safety Month (GYTSM), and the Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit (JH-IIRU) supports the National Organizations for Youth Safety (NOYS) in their efforts to address the issue of road safety among young people. We encourage a worldwide conversation to call attention to road traffic fatalities not only in the United States, but around the world, especially in low- and middle-income countries, were nearly 95% of youth road traffic fatalities occur.

According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) World report on child injury prevention, 2008, more than 260,000 children die as a result of road traffic crashes each year, with an estimated 10 million more sustaining non-life threatening injuries. Road traffic injuries (RTIs) are the global leading cause of death for children 15-19 years, and the second leading cause of death for children 5-14 years.  What’s more, RTI’s rank within the top 15 causes of disease burden worldwide for children under 14.

National Youth Global Youth Traffic Safety Month® (GYTSM) was formed in partnership with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to support the United Nations 2007 Global Road Safety Week.

To find out more about GYTSM, visit the NOYS site: http://www.noys.org/default.aspx

To read the WHO’s World report on child injury prevention, click here: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/child/injury/world_report/en/

To find out more about JH-IIRU’s global road safety work, visit our publication list here, as well as our special issues on the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Road Safety Program: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/gcpi20/13/sup1#.U3DLooFdXh4

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00201383/44/supp/S4