Regional economic disparities contribute to a disproportionate number of fatal and severe crashes among active travelers (pedestrians and bicyclists) in economically disadvantaged areas. Such road safety inequalities may be further exacerbated by external shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, due to regional variations in safety resilience. However, few studies have examined how the determinants of injury severity vary across regions with differing economic conditions, while accounting for COVID-contributing temporal shifts. This study uses North Carolina as a case study, classifying counties into three groups (i.e., highly, moderately, and least distressed counties) based on four economic indicators, and defining three pandemic periods (i.e., before, during, and after the pandemic). A partially constrained random parameter multinomial logit model with heterogeneity in the means and variances is estimated for crashes in each county group. Results show that the effects of factors are more stable in the least distressed counties, suggesting stronger safety resilience under external shocks. Additionally, during the pandemic, alcohol-impaired driving significantly affected injury severity only in highly and moderately distressed counties. Out-of-sample predictions further suggest that the probability of severe injuries among active travelers increases with rising regional economic distress and after the pandemic. Moreover, compared to the least distressed counties, the reduced safety resilience in highly and moderately distressed counties is attributed to weaker recovery and resistance capacities, respectively. These findings provide valuable insights for formulating region-specific policies, detecting system vulnerabilities, and promoting equitable and sustainable active transportation systems.
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