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Press Room

Statement from José Luis Castro, President and CEO, Vital Strategies on World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims 2020

“On World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, we remember the more than 1.35 million lives lost annually on the world’s roads. This year, as we approach the end of the Decade of Action for Road Safety and reflect on 10 years of lessons learned, we call for governments to adopt integrated, public health approaches to reducing death and injury from preventable crashes. Governments need to bring together officials from various sectors including health, transportation, planning agencies, and law enforcement to renew focus on implementing and enforcing policies that prevent traffic crashes, deaths and injuries.

Road safety is a public health issue that is the leading cause of death for young people ages 5-29. More people are dying from road traffic crashes than HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis or diarrheal diseases.  Governments and public health leaders must include road safety as part of their public health initiatives and programming.

Vital Strategies is proud to work with governments around the world to enact smart evidence-based strategies that save lives including: improving data surveillance systems, changing road user behavior through communication strategies, supporting the strengthening of legislation, and addressing the key risky behaviors of speeding, drink driving, lack of helmet use and lack of seat-belt use. We are committed to achieving the United Nation’s goal of halving traffic deaths by 2030 under the Second Decade of Action for Road Safety and ensuring that every person has access to safe streets.”

About Vital Strategies

Vital Strategies is a global health organization that believes every person should be protected by a strong public health system. We work with governments and civil society in 73 countries to design and implement evidence-based strategies that tackle their most pressing public health problems. Our goal is to see governments adopt promising interventions at scale as rapidly as possible. To find out more, please visit vstrategystage.wpengine.com or Twitter @VitalStrat.