Health burden of serious road injuries in the Netherlands

BACKGROUND

The consequences of injuries in terms of disabilities and health burden are relevant for policy making. This article provides an overview of the current knowledge on this topic and discusses the health burden of serious road injuries in The Netherlands.

METHODS

The overview of current knowledge on disabilities following a road crash is based on a literature review. The health burden of serious road injuries is quantified in terms of years lived with disability (YLD), by combining incidence data from the Dutch hospital discharge register with information about temporary and lifelong disability.

RESULTS

Literature shows that road traffic injuries can have a major impact on victims' physical and psychological well-being and functioning. Reported proportions of people with disability vary between 11 and 80% depending on the type of casualties, time elapsed since the crash, and the health impacts considered. Together, all casualties involving serious injuries in The Netherlands in 2009 account for about 38,000 YLD, compared to 25,000 years of life lost (YLL) of fatalities. Ninety percent of the burden of injury is due to lifelong consequences that are experienced by 20% of all those seriously injured in road accidents. Lower leg injuries and head injuries represent a high share in the total burden of injury as have cyclists that are injured in a crash without a motorized vehicle. Pedestrians and powered 2-wheeler users show the highest burden of injury per casualty.

CONCLUSION

Given their major impacts and contribution to health burden, road policy making should also be aimed at reducing the number of serious road injuries and limiting the resulting health impacts.

Perceived health status associated with transport choice for short distance trips

Background

This study examines the association between active transport and perceived general health, perceived psychological wellbeing and a healthy body weight in the Netherlands.

Methods

Data were collected by an online questionnaire (N = 3663) in the Netherlands. Data collection was conducted over a period of one calendar year starting July 2012. Logistic regression analyses were used to investigate the association between choice of transport mode (bicycling vs car use and walking vs car use) and perceived general health, perceived psychological wellbeing and having a healthy weight respectively. The presented OR's may be interpreted as the likelihood of an average person in our dataset to have a better perceived health or body weight when choosing active transport (either bicycling or walking) over using the car for trips up to 7.5 km.

Results

Cycling was found to be significantly associated with a better perceived general health (OR = 1.35, 95%CI:1.07–1.70) and having a healthy body weight (OR = 1.52, 95%CI:1.28–1.79), but not with a better perceived psychological wellbeing (OR = 1.12, 95%CI:0.93–1.34). Walking was found to be significantly associated with having a healthy body weight (OR = 1.35, 95%CI:1.09–1.69), but not with a better perceived general (OR = 1.12, 95%CI:0.84–1.51) or psychological wellbeing (OR = 0.85, 95%CI:0.67–1.08).

Conclusion

Our results suggest that active transport use has been associated with a better perceived general health and a healthy body weight. However, more research is needed to be able to elucidate which factors cause this better health. No associations were observed between transport choice and perceived psychological wellbeing.

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Active transport users experience a better perceived general health.

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Active transport users are more likely to have a healthy body weight.

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No association between transport choice and perceived psychological wellbeing in The Netherlands