Transport for Health - The Global Burden of Disease from Motorized Road Transport

This report quantifies, for the first time, the global health loss from injuries and air pollution that can be attributed to motorized road transport. It combines estimates of the global burden of road injuries based on a large pool of new data from the most information-poor regions with estimates of the health effects of pollution from vehicles. The results of this analysis show the following:

• Motorized road transport imposes a large burden on population health, resulting in more than 1.5 million deaths and 79.6 million healthy years of life lost annually. Deaths from road transport exceed those from HIV, tuberculosis, or malaria.
• Injuries and pollution from vehicles contribute to six of the top 10 causes of death globally.
• Road injuries have a substantial impact on maternal and child health. Health loss attributable to motorized road transport exceeds that from key risk factors affecting children, including childhood underweight and suboptimal breastfeeding. Road injuries rank among the top 10 causes of death after the first year of life through age 59. In addition, road injuries are a top-10 cause of death among women of childbearing age and are the fourth-leading cause among women aged 15 to 29 years.
• The burden due to motorized road transport is growing. Over the last two decades, deaths due to road crashes grew by 46%. Deaths attributable to air pollution, to which motor vehicles are an important contributor, grew by 11%.
• Health loss resulting from the combined effects of road injuries and pollution from transport is substantial in all regions. While the deaths from road transport are dominated by road injuries in poorer regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa, health loss due to pollution from vehicles tends to be highest among richer regions, such as Western Europe.
• Injuries are responsible for most of the burden of motorized road transport, accounting for 95% of the healthy life years lost. Road crashes result in 1.3 million deaths annually and 78.2 million nonfatal injuries warranting medical care. Pedestrians alone account for 35% of road injury deaths globally and over 50% in East and Central sub-Saharan Africa.
• Pollution from vehicles is the cause of 184,000 deaths globally, including 91,000 deaths from ischemic heart disease, 59,000 deaths from stroke, and 34,000 deaths from lower respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer.