experiences from JA CHRODIS in order to cope with the chronic disease challenge.
The burden of chronic diseases is mainly reduced by facilitating and promoting the transfer of identified and evaluated good practices in health promotion and preven-tion of disease.
Scope and patterns of under-reporting of vulnerable road users in official road accident statistics
Monica Steiner
R Bauer1, M Steiner1, A Ku¨hnelt-Leddhin1, R Lyons2, S Turner2,
W Walters2, B Larsen3, H Valkenberg4, D Bejko5, G Ellsaesser6,
W Rogmans7, R Kisser8
1Austrian Road Safety Board (KFV), Vienna, Austria 2Public Health Wales NHS Trust, Swansea, UK
3National Institute of Public Health, Copenhagen, Denmark 4Consumer Safety Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands 5Luxembourg Institute of Health, Luxembourg, Luxembourg
6State Office of Occupational Safety, Consumer Protection and Health,
Brandenburg, Potsdam, Germany
7Eurosafe, Amsterdam, Netherlands 8Eurosafe, Vienna, Austria
Contact: rfbauer@gmx.at Issue/problem
The EU road safety policy aims to cut European road deaths by 50% by 2020 compared to 2010, and reduce non-fatal injuries accordingly. To do so, among a mix of measures, it also seeks to make vulnerable road users (VRU) safer by improving communication; and improving tools for collecting and analysing accidents. However, the statistical evidence for assessing road safety seems to be considerably biased towards to the detriment of VRU.
Description of the problem
According to police records about 1.4 million road traffic users were injured in the EU in 2014, 135 000 of which were seriously injured. However, according to recent estimates of the hospital based EU Injury Database (https://ec.europa.eu/ health/data_collection/databases/idb_en), 4.2 million road traffic injuries occur annually, 668 000 of which have to be admitted to hospital. This indicates a considerable under-reporting of road traffic injuries in police records.
Results (effects/changes)
Under-reporting in police records has been shown to be in particular high for cyclists (by a factor of 4.5), pedestrians (1.8), and powered two-wheelers (1.9). As a result, VRU account for almost two thirds of road accident casualties attending hospital, as opposed to ‘‘only’’ 48% in police records. The further analysis of IDB data for twelve EU countries has revealed that officially ‘‘un-reported’’ VRU injuries affect certain socio-demographic groups more than others (examples will be given for mode of transport, age, sex and type of treatment).
Lessons
A safe and healthy environment is an important factor for people to choose cycling and walking as their preferred choice of individual travel, especially in urban areas. In many places, however, authorities simply lack the factual basis for adequately assessing VRU safety. In this respect, the additional use of hospital data in road safety management would be an important improvement.
Key messages:
Due to under-reporting, authorities lack the factual basis for adequately assessing the safety of vulnerable road users (VRU), cyclists and pedestrians in particular.
Hospital data (e.g. IDB) are an important complementary source to police records for a better assessment of VRU safety.
Air pollution and health: study of the biological effects in children by buccal micronucleus assay Marco Verani
M Verani1, A Carducci1, G Donzelli1, G Palomba1, E Ceretti2,
S Vannini3, M Moretti3, F Bagordo4, C Pignata5, A Biggeri6, U Gelatti2
1Department of Biology, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
2Department of Medical and Surgical Specialties, Radiological Science and
Public Health, University of Brescia, Italy
3Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Perugia, Perugia,
Italy
4Department of Biological and Environmental Science and Technology,
University of Salento, Lecce, Italy
5Department of Public Health and Pediatrics, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
6Department of Statistic, Computing and Application, University of
Florence, Florence, Italy Contact: marco.verani@unipi.it Background
The EU funded MAPEC_LIFE project evaluated the associa-tions between air pollutants and a biomarker of early effect, the micronuclei (MN) frequency, in children living in five Italian towns (Brescia, Torino, Pisa, Perugia and Lecce), considering also lifestyle and socio-demographic features.
Methods
MN assay was performed in epithelial buccal cells from children in three seasons, meanwhile the air pollution exposure was evaluated by measuring several parameters. A question-naire on socio-demographic and life-style features was spread to children’s parents. For statistical analysis, count of MN was considered as response variable in regression analysis and a multivariate Poisson regression mixed models were applied.
Results
In the first winter season, the 52,7% of children showed at least one micronucleus in cells, with a mean MN frequency of 0.44 MN/1000 cells. The comparison between the towns showed statistically significant different level (p = 0.013). In spring season, MN frequency was lower than in winter (0.22 MN/1000 cells, p = 0.001), the difference between towns disappears and the percentage of positive children was lower too (35.9%). In the third season, again in winter, both MN (0.40 MN/1000 cells) and positive children (48.1%) increased. MN frequency resulted associated with the levels of benzene, PM2.5, ozone, SO2 and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The multivariate Poisson regression models revealed the increase of the risk of having MN for one-unit increase of these pollutant levels, that was: 20.1% for benzene; 1.1% for PM2.5; 1.3% for ozone; 4.2% for SO2; 1.7% for PAHs. Season and town turned out to influence MN, as well as other questionnaire’s factors: environmental tobacco smoke and high BMI were positively associated with MN frequency, while adherence to Mediterranean diet was negatively associated.
Conclusions
Our results confirmed that MN test applied to children buccal mucosa cells can detect early effects of air pollution exposure. Key messages:
The assessment of biomarkers of early effect in the population (micronucleus test) is useful for a complete overview of the impact of air pollution exposure.
The obtained results can be used to propose some guidance for implementing policies of public health protection.
10th European Public Health Conference: Parallel sessions 247
