Global trauma: the great divide

Abstract

Road trauma is an emergent global issue. There is huge disparity between the population affected by road trauma and the resource allocation. If the current trend continues, a predicted extra 5 million lives will be lost in this decade. This article aims to create an awareness of the scale of the problem of road trauma and the inequality in the resources available to address this problem. It also describes the responses from the international organisations and the orthopaedic community in dealing with this issue. The International Orthopaedic community has a unique opportunity and moral obligation to play a part in changing this trend of global trauma.

Keywords: Accidents; Health resources; Traffic.

Figure 1.

Chart depicting figures for the road traffic injuries (in millions) for the WHO regions (AFR – Africa, SEAR – South East Asia, WPR – Western Pacific, EMR – Eastern Mediterranean, EUR – Europe, AMR – Americas).

Figure 2.

World map depicting countries in a size relative to the number of road traffic deaths (note how small Europe & USA appear).

Figure 3.

Table comparing the DALYs ranking between 2004 and 2030 [4].

Figure 4.

World map depicting countries in a size relative to their GDP (note the reversal of size distributions shown in Figure 2).

Figure 5.

WHO projected trend of road deaths to 2020.