Road Traffic Accidents: Epidemiology of an Injury Problem Solution Essay

Introduction: Epidemiology, Statistics and Other Related Issues

Road accidents will always happen (Bartley, 2008). No matter how well people might learn the basic principles of road regulations and the rules of pedestrian safety, due to the notorious human factor, accidents are practically unavoidable (Cacciabue, 2004). As a result, road injuries will never cease to occur, and, therefore, the guidelines on their efficient handling must be revisited once again.

Due to the rise in the population umber in most cities, the number of road accidents has also increased (Gustavsson, 2008), which cannot but cause concern among the representatives of healthcare services.

Despite the attempts that have been undertaken in order to address the issue of road accidents, the number of the latter does not seem to be going to decrease any time soon; however, with the help of a new strategy that will allow for the introduction of the basic road safety rules to the target audience, one can possibly bring the rates of bad accidents down a few notches.

The given goal can be achieved after a careful analysis of the existing data on the road accidents in the United Kingdom has been carried out and the detailed information concerning the types of road accidents, their number and their victims is acquired.

Therefore, the goal of this paper is not only to define the key type of road injuries – although the research will also comment on the given type of data – but also to offer efficient measures to prevent road accidents, as well as handle them fast.

Priority Area: The Cost of Human Life

In the modern world, human life is the top priority, which all the actions should be centered around (Gostin, 2010). Like in any other research in healthcare, people’s health and well-being is the priority of the given paper. As a result, the means to preserve the lives of the people who happened to be in the epicenter of a road accident are being discussed in this paper.

One might argue, though, that the superiority of human life is only implied in the given research, while the real focus of the research is the analysis of the statistical data on road accidents across the United Kingdom, as well as the process of working on the strategy for fighting road accidents.

Indeed, the research revolves around the aforementioned issues and, in fact, provides the opportunity of studying the social factors causing road accidents along with the data concerning the road injuries, instead of merely specifying the annual number of injuries.

As a result, one can easily get the full picture of what causes road accidents, who gets into car crashes and other types of incidents, as well as study the possible social factors inducing these incidents, such as social/family background, workload, etc.

However, at the end of the day, these are the prevention measures against road accidents that matter; as a matter of fact, the entire research is aimed at checking whether there are possible means to reduce the amount of road accidents by providing people with detailed instructions on the type of behavior acceptable in places with complex traffic patterns.

Thus, it can be assumed that the key priority of the given research revolves around the safety of the people who might be possibly under the threat of getting into a road traffic accident.

Road Traffic Accidents Related to the Target Audience

Before defining the target audience for the given research, it is necessary to say a couple of words about the people who are affected by the road accidents most. According to what the reports on the UK road accidents say, most of the victim lists consist of the people of 18–50 years (RAS30001 – reported road casualties by road user type and severity, Great Britain, 2005–09 average, annual for latest 5 available years, 2013, June 27).

Of course, one might argue that the given number is far too big to make a reasonable conclusion, the problem is actually not with the lack of precision when it comes to the age of the people injured in the road accidents.

Instead, the emphasis shifts to the fact that the types of victims range from pedestrians to the ones responsible for the accident themselves (RAS30002 – reported casualties by road user type, age and severity, Great Britain, latest available year, 2013, June 27).

Therefore, it is more than advisable to consider every possible group of people involved into road accidents in order to specify the target audience for the given research (Road traffic injury prevention manual, 2006).

Preventive Measures and Their Efficiency: What Needs to Be Changed

When choosing the intervention that can possibly work within the chosen setting, one must admit that there are two basic ways to help the people who can possibly suffer from being involved in a road accident or be the victim of the one (Hoye, 2009).

To start with, it is crucial that people should spread awareness of road accidents and the necessity to comply with the existing pedestrian safety rules, as well as the rule of the road in general (Peden, 2008).

According to the results provided by the data sets, the people who are most prone to road accidents are people aged 18–50 (RAS30004 – Reported road casualties by road user type: Great Britain, quarterly and annual for latest 11 available years, 2011).

Since employees and students fall into the given age category, it is most reasonable to introduce college/university courses and business courses where people are taught the basics of road safety (Kennedy-Smith, 2012).

However, as the numerous examples of case studies and researches show, being aware of the dangers of road accidents, as well as knowing the basic ways to avoid these accidents will not necessarily help. Therefore, it will be required to make people aware of what has to be done once a road accident has taken place (Gurgaon doctor raises awareness on first aid for road accident victims, n. d.).

As reports show, people tend to move the injured in case of road accidents, which often results in harming the injured person/people even more. Therefore, it is desirable that the basic rules on how to treat the victim of a road accident must be provided for the entire population of the UK.

The given goal can be reached by creating a massive campaign with advertisements and commercials not only on TV, but also in the largest social networks, such as Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, etc. (Knoxville car accident prevention: Distracted driver awareness month, 2013, April 10).

Injury Data for the TA: Minor Discrepancies in the Statistical Information

It must be admitted that for the most part, the data provided by the dataset offered by the UK Department of Transport is rather adequate, as well as the manner in which the given data is provided for the audience to consider. However, it cannot be argued that the current data sets still can and must be improved so that the data available for the analysis could be acquired and processed faster and more efficiently.

To be more particular, the way in which the people suffering from road accidents have been classified could use some improvements. At present, the available dataset offers very scarce information on the age of the injured without actually specifying a number of important details concerning the injured.

The first detail that falls into the eye is the fact that there is no statistical data concerning the gender of the injured or yet, more importantly, their social status. While age is an important piece of information to consider, it gives little to no idea of what made the people in question neglect or fail to learn the basic rules of pedestrian safety or/and road regulations (National Roads Authority, 2000).

Another obvious failure of the existing methods of gathering information on road accidents and road accident victims is the absence of injuries classification. On the one hand, the cases of road injuries have been split into the basic severe damage – light damage – death types; however, the information provided in the data set does not allow figuring out which organs are typically injured most in road accidents.

For example, the existing data sets could also have an additional slot or even one more table that would provide the data on injury types, e.g., “head traumas: 70, hand breaches – 50, hand twists – 30,” etc. With the help of the given classification, one would be able to provide the measures that would address the injuries in question, therefore, being more specific and, as a result, more efficient (Saraee, Kerry, Lloyd & Markey, n. d.).

Improving the Data Issues: Ideas and Suggestions

As the paragraph above shows, the data provided on the road traffic accidents and the injuries associated with these accidents, the information datasets definitely lack in certain types of information, such as the kind of injury that the victim of the accident suffered from, the gender of the victim, a more specific age classification, the classification according to the specifics of the victim’s social status, etc.

In general, the statistical data provided by the corresponding organizations could clearly use a better nomenclature and be much more diverse; in other words, the analysis of the existing data carried out by the corresponding state services could have been implemented in a much more impressive way.

Therefore, to improve the data available from the online databases, one should analyze it more carefully and split it into more categories, so that more conclusions could be drawn from it. To start with, it is clear that the suggestion provided by the authors of the case study in question is not enough.

On the one hand, it is important to have competent staff being able to address the most complicated cases of injuries in case of a road accident. However, as the results of the research show, in most cases, the death of the victim is inflicted by the careless, though hardly malicious, treatment of the witnesses of the accident.

The given conclusion leads to the discovery that very few people, in fact, know what to do in case of road traffic accidents. Therefore, it is important to spread awareness concerning the actions to be taken in case of being a witness to a road accident. Once people are able to withdraw from doing unpremeditated harm to the victims, it will be easier for the medical staff to address the problem and help the victims efficiently.

Reference List

Bartley, G. P. (2008). Traffic accidents: Causes and outcomes. New York, NY: Nova Science Publishers.

Cacciabue, P. C. (2004). Guide to applying human factor methods: Human error and accident management in safety-critical systems. New York, NY: Springer.

Gostin, L. O. (2010). Public health law and ethics: A reader. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Gurgaon doctor raises awareness on first aid for road accident victims. Web.

Gustavsson, P. (2008). New transportation research progress. New York, NY: Nova Publishers.

Hoye, A. (2009). The handbook of road safety measures. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing, Ltd.

Kennedy-Smith, L. (2012). Crash! What you don’t know about driving can kill you! Victoria, CA: FriesenPress.

Knoxville car accident prevention: Distracted driver awareness month (2013). Web.

National Roads Authority (2000). Road accident facts: Ireland 2000. Web.

Peden, M. M. (2008). World report on child injury prevention. Geneva: World Health Organization.

RAS30001 – reported road casualties by road user type and severity, Great Britain, 2005–09 average, annual for latest 5 available years (2013). Web.

RAS30002 – reported casualties by road user type, age and severity, Great Britain, latest available year (2013). Web.

RAS30004 – Reported road casualties by road user type: Great Britain, quarterly and annual for latest 11 available years (2011). Web.

Road traffic injury prevention manual (2006). Geneva: World health Organization.

Saraee, M., Kerry, J., Lloyd, M. & Markey, C. Application of data mining: Case of road accidents in the UK West Midlands area. Web.