Health modelling of transport in low-and-middle income countries: A case study of New Delhi, India

Abstract

Transportation impacts population health through air pollution, traffic injuries and physical activity. In the cities of low-and-middle income countries, where travel patterns are rapidly changing, the understanding of these impacts on health is limited. We estimate the health loss among adults (≥15 years) that can be attributed to motorised transportation systems and health benefits attributed to active travel in New Delhi in the year 2014. We show that under baseline transport patterns, health loss is dominated by road traffic injuries (170,000 Disability-Adjusted Life Years, DALYs), which is about three times the burden due to traffic-related fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution (~64,000 DALYs). Baseline use of active travel, on the other hand, prevents health burden (~90,000 DALYs), which is as large as 40% of the combined health loss due to injuries and vehicular air pollution. Next, we estimate the effect of changing Delhi’s travel modal shares to that of London, New York City and Amsterdam. For these scenarios, we limited to the impact on injuries and physical activity. In all scenarios, there is additional health burden due to traffic injuries and reduced physical activity, and the former exceeds the latter. Greater motorisation in the future is likely to result in large burden of health due to injuries and reduced physical activity. Small reductions in active travel has the potential to negate health benefits from large reductions in traffic emissions. There is an urgent need to develop an alternative pathway of development that is not based on greater use of private motor vehicles.