Crash Fatality Trends in WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region During 1980 - 2014

WHO-Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) covers 627 million inhabitants and 98 million vehicles. This study aims to estimate and analyze the road crash deaths in EMR during the past 35 years by compiling the data for each country within the region. The crash fatalities are mainly adjusted and modelled for underreporting, death definition differences and missing data. The data are gathered from official sites, fact books, international databases, extensive literature, web search, and personal communications. The developed models employed simple deterministic time series by employing curve fitting regression and scattered diagrams. The sum of crash deaths in the region followed continuous increasing trends. The recorded traffic crash deaths increased about two and a half times between 1980 and 2011. The adjusted crash deaths during 2013 and 2014 showed precedence records close to 99,000. The estimated crash death represents just 60% of that reported in EMR Status Report on Road Safety. The crash deaths for the year 2025 are expected to increase by 15% compared with 2014. The fatality rate per vehicles showed continuous descending patterns. Such positive trends might be deceiving in the absence of exposure rate. The fatality rates per population showed highly fluctuated conditions with no regressed model fitting the data well. The current adjusted fatality rates are far above the norms compared with the developed countries. The patterns in various sub-EMR showed clear diversities between them. Such poor safety records require careful reading, a proper interpretation of the results, and extensive research.

Author(s): Hashim MN Al-Madani

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