Addressing discrepancies in estimates of road traffic deaths and injuries in Ethiopia

Abstract

BackgroundThere are large discrepancies between official statistics of traffic injuries in African countries and estimates from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study and WHO’s Global Status Reports on Road Safety (GSRRS). We sought to assess the magnitude of the discrepancy in Ethiopia, its implications and how it can be addressed.MethodsWe systematically searched for nationally representative epidemiological data sources for road traffic injuries and vehicle ownership in Ethiopia and compared estimates with those from GBD and GSRRS.FindingsGBD and GSRRS estimates vary substantially across revisions and across projects. GSRRS-2018 estimates of deaths (27 326 in 2016) are more than three times GBD-2019 estimates (8718), and these estimates have non-overlapping uncertainty ranges. GSRRS estimates align well with the 2016 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS-2016; 27 838 deaths, 95th CI: 15 938 to 39 738). Official statistics are much lower (5118 deaths in 2018) than all estimates. GBD-2019 estimates of serious non-fatal injuries are consistent with DHS-2016 estimates (106 050 injuries, 95th CI: 81 728 to 130 372) and older estimates from the 2003 World Health Survey. Data from five surveys confirm that vehicle ownership levels in Ethiopia are much lower than in other countries in the region.InterpretationInclusion of data from national health surveys in GBD and GSRRS can help reduce discrepancies in estimates of deaths and support their use in highlighting under-reporting in official statistics and advocating for better prioritisation of road safety in the national policy agenda. GBD methods for estimating serious non-fatal injuries should be strengthened to allow monitoring progress towards Sustainable Development Goal target 3.6.

Mapping Evidence on Road Safety Information Management Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: Scoping Review Protocol

“…The copyright holder for this this version posted February 14, 2024. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02. 13.24302651 doi: medRxiv preprint regardless of design or methodology they used. Specifically, primary studies including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method studies are eligible sources of information.…”

“…The road safety data have crucial role in awareness raising, characterizing the accident, diagnosing its causes, and thereby to act as evidence and inform policy and program interventions, resource allocation, and monitoring and evaluating progress [8,9]. However, road safety data often relies on patchwork of data sources that include incomplete or inaccessible in SSA due to multifaceted challenges that hindering the understanding of the true 4 magnitude of the problem, its consequences, decision making, and progress toward improvements [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Like other SSA countries, Ethiopia also faces a serious road safety problem, and one of the four countries accounting for more than half of the RTA fatalities in the region of SSA.…”

“…The copyright holder for this this version posted February 14, 2024. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.13.24302651 doi: medRxiv preprint 4 magnitude of the problem, its consequences, decision making, and progress toward improvements [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Like other SSA countries, Ethiopia also faces a serious road safety problem, and one of the four countries accounting for more than half of the RTA fatalities in the region of SSA.…”

“…Moreover, the safety data in the country's rising the issues of quality and accuracy, as it relies on the manually processed paper works [20]. As a result, evidence have been indicating that the accurate burden of the RTA in Ethiopia is underreported and estimated to be at least double of what actually reported [13,20,21]. For instance, in their study Abegaz(2014) identified a significant underreporting and discrepancies between the police and hospital accident data in the country [20].…”

“…Ethiopia has taken some steps to address its road safety challenges including developing a national road safety strategy (2021-2030) [22], and slight reduction has been observed in the magnitude and death rates, while the aim is to reduce by 50% by 2030 [21][22][23][24]. Though, the country recognized the need for strengthening road safety data as one of priority areas, efforts yet remain to bring changes towards reliable and timely data and information management system [13,20]. Road safety data/information management system (RSIMS) is one of the key components of an effective road safety system suggested to overcome the challenges of poor road accident records and information management in each country across the world [25].…”