International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion最新文献

Accurate prediction of traffic accident severity remains challenging due to feature coupling and class imbalance, which hinder reliable applications in autonomous driving safety systems. This study proposes a Dynamic and Static Cross Entropy Integrated Neural Network (DSCE-INN) to address these issues. Using 857 real-world accident cases from the 2017-2021 China National Automobile Accident In-Depth Investigation System (NAIS), a Weighted Injury Coefficient is developed to enable continuous injury mapping, and K-means clustering reclassifies severity into three levels: property damage only, non-disabling injury, and disabling or fatal injury. Information gain identifies 11 critical features. DSCE-INN employs feature decoupling, transforming the multi-class task into binary sub-models, and introduces a dynamic-static weighted cross-entropy loss to jointly mitigate coupling and imbalance. A soft-hard voting mechanism, combined with L1 regularisation and focal loss, further enhances prediction robustness. Experimental results show accuracies of 0.782, 0.729, and 0.801, significantly outperforming a baseline ANN. Findings demonstrate DSCE-INN's effectiveness and practical value for autonomous driving safety.

Three-wheeled motorized rickshaws (3-WMRs) present serious safety risks in developing countries, yet the joint effects of weather and temporal changes on crash severity remain underexplored. Using six years of police-reported 3-WMR crash data from Rawalpindi, Pakistan (2017-2022), we estimate a partially constrained temporal random-parameters logit model with heterogeneity in means to capture unobserved factors and time-varying effects across weather types and biennial periods. Severe or fatal injuries are more likely in crashes involving motorcycles, pedestrians, or trucks; single-vehicle events; older drivers; peak-hour traffic; wrong U-turns; speeding; and distraction. Importantly, the magnitudes and directions of several effects vary by weather and over time. Rainy conditions elevate severity risk (e.g., reduced friction), whereas sunny weather is linked to riskier behaviors (e.g., speeding). The results support adaptive, weather-specific countermeasures, including stricter speed enforcement in rain, enhanced signing/markings for low visibility, and targeted training for high-risk groups such as older riders.

This study analyzed amputations resulting from road injuries worldwide from 1990 to 2021 using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021. The findings revealed a 39.1% decrease in age-standardized prevalence rates, but the global absolute number of amputations increased by 7.8%, reaching 25.9 million by 2021. While age-standardized incidence and YLD rates declined, notable disparities persisted across regions and socio-demographic indices, with the highest burden observed in Middle and High-middle SDI areas. The burden was disproportionately higher among men, especially those aged 45-79. Projections indicate a rise in the prevalence and YLD rates by 2040, highlighting the need for enhanced road safety, trauma care, and rehabilitation services to address this growing public health issue.

This study addresses the hazards and potential damage from using electric overhead traveling (EOT) cranes in industrial environments. It aims to implement and evaluate effective measures to control and mitigate these risks. A novel approach integrates virtual reality (VR), double upper approximated rough number (DUARN), safety function deployment (SFD) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) principles to assess the effectiveness of risk control systems (RCSs). A three-dimensional VR environment is developed to enhance the effectiveness of safety training for EOT crane operators in a steel manufacturing plant. The study presents a granulated SFD (GSFD) approach that utilizes granular computing to precisely model the uncertainties arising from experts' opinions, particularly EOT crane operators. The uncertainties pertain to hazards, initiating mechanisms (IMs) and associated RCSs identified after VR-based training. The proposed model is a three-stage granular house of safety (HoS) that aims to clarify the connections between hazards, IMs and RCSs. The results show that standard operating procedures (SOPs) are the top intervention, ensuring consistent and safe crane operations, and VR-based safety training (VRST) is crucial for immersive, risk-free hazard recognition. Interlocked protective devices and smart wearable technology can also enhance safety by preventing accidents and monitoring worker health in real-time. This comprehensive approach shows the potential for significant improvements in operational safety, providing an adequate framework for various industrial applications.

The growing number of road accidents in India has been a concern over the years. Alcohol and mobile phone use while driving have been found to be important factors in road injuries. Although legislative changes, like 'The Motor Vehicle (Amendement) Act, 2019', introduced stricter penalties to control dangerous driving behavior, limited evidence exists regarding their real-world impact in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) like India. This study examines the impact of increased penalties on alcohol and mobile-related accidents in India using "Road Accidents in India" reports. Accident trends were assessed before and after the implementation of stricter penalties using year-on-year statistical testing for proportion differences. Drunk driving and mobile phone-related violations increased until 2019 but showed a significant decline following the introduction of higher penalties, sustained up until 2021. Findings show that while stricter penalties help, lasting impact depends on consistent enforcement, public awareness, and attitudinal changes toward road safety.

Ghana is losing too many lives on the road, and the numbers continue to rise. This study examined road traffic fatalities in Ghana from 1991 to 2024, identified their major causes and compared Ghana's situation with that of selected African countries. Data were obtained from credible sources, including the National Road Safety Authority, the World Health Organisation, the Ghana Highway Authority and relevant local studies. The findings show that more than 46,000 people died in road crashes between 1991 and 2018, with an additional 2,494 deaths recorded in 2024 alone. The leading causes were poor road infrastructure, driver error and vehicle defects. Comparative analysis revealed that Ghana's road fatality rate is higher than that of Rwanda and Nigeria, despite Ghana having a smaller vehicle population. Using a statistical projection based on historical trends, the study indicates that Ghana could record more than 2,800 road deaths in a single year by 2030 if current conditions persist. This trajectory suggests that the country is unlikely to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal target of halving road traffic deaths. These findings highlight a crisis that has become normalised in everyday life, where road travel is often perceived as a gamble. Urgent and coordinated action is therefore required, including improved road infrastructure, expansion of dual carriageways, stricter enforcement of traffic regulations and sustained public education. Road safety in Ghana has become a national public health and development priority rather than a transport issue alone.

The transport of young children on motorcycles is a concern in many low- and middle-income countries. A 2015 World Health Organization report speculated about the potential value of safety restraints ("safety harness") that strap the child to the adult rider and aim to prevent young children from slipping off motorcycles. Although the WHO report recommended that the concept should be evaluated before adoption, India recently became the first country to mandate the use of child safety harnesses. Epidemiological data from India show that children rarely slip off motorcycles. In contrast, crashes of motorcycles that are carrying young children are far more common. In a crash, a child who is tethered to an adult is likely to sustain more severe injuries because of the adult's mass and movement during impact. Therefore, the risks posed by harnesses to children may far exceed their benefits. Policies promoting these devices will likely create a false sense of safety among parents that could increase the transport of young children on motorcycles and in more risky conditions. India's policy mandating their use should be discontinued until more evidence is available. We call for urgent reconsideration and redirection of attention toward evidence-based strategies to protect children in traffic.

Prior research showed a reverse U-shaped or Kuznets curve association between road deaths and income growth. However, no research has linked income growth to elderly road deaths (ERD). This study uses the fixed effects negative binomial panel regression on 82 countries over 30 years to close this gap. Results show a Kuznets curve association between the ERD rate and per capita Real Gross Domestic Product (RGDP). The ERD rate rises with per capita RGDP to a threshold, and then declines as income continues to grow. Additionally, increasing income disparity delays this critical turning point associated with increasing per capita RGDP. This study also reveals a reverse U-shaped association between urbanization (URB) and ERD rate, with ERD rate peaking in countries with diverse traffic conditions and less road choice. Considering economic and demographic changes, this study emphasises the need for ERD rate reduction policies.

As Taiwan transitions into a super-aged society, elderly road users face increasing risks of traffic accidents due to age-related physiological and cognitive decline. This study compared traffic accident characteristics between young-elderly (65-74 years) and older-elderly (≥75 years) road users in Taiwan, where motorcycles dominate the transportation environment. Chi-square and Mann-Whitney U tests were applied to examine differences in accident characteristics, injury and fatality proportions, and urbanization areas, while logistic regression were used to assess the age-related differences in injury and fatality outcomes. The results showed that motor accidents were prevalent among the elderly. Compared with the young-elderly, the older-elderly had higher injury and fatality proportions, with lower proportion of car accidents but higher proportions of bicycle and pedestrian accidents. In addition, drunk driving was more prevalent among the young-elderly across all vehicle types, whereas unlicensed motor vehicle driving was more common among the older-elderly. These findings reveal distinct risk patterns between elderly subgroups and underscore the need for targeted interventions to enhance traffic safety in both aging populations and motorcycle-dependent societies.

This study examines the epidemiology of road traffic injuries (RTIs) in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR), which ranks third globally in fatalities, with a focus on Oman. The analysis used secondary data from World Road Safety Reports across 22 EMR member states. Trained national coordinators collected data from various sectors. Descriptive statistics summarized fatality rates and trends, while comparative analysis assessed regional differences. Additional sources included UN regulations, the UN Population Division, and World Bank indicators. The EMR, representing about 8.8% of the global population, accounts for 10.51% of all RTI fatalities, with a fatality rate of 16.4 per 100,000, compared to 9.3 in Europe. Among high-income countries, the average rate is 10.0 per 100,000. The highest rates are in Saudi Arabia (18.5) and Oman (11.0). Oman reduced its RTI fatalities from 29.5 per 100,000 in 2013 to 11 in 2023, with 497 fatalities reported that year; 21% involved four-wheeled vehicles and pedestrians. Oman must enhance the enforcement of road safety laws. A focus on protecting vulnerable road users and community involvement is essential for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals of reducing RTI deaths by 2030.