Dr. Adnan A. Hyder, assistant professor and Leon Robertson Faculty Development Chair in the School’s department of International Health, will be making a presentation today to United Nations (UN) ambassadors in New York, NY ,about the increasing burden of road traffic injuries. UN Ambassador Fuad Al-Hinai of Oman is hosting the briefing.
“Although the statistics are clear, road traffic injuries aren’t receiving the same amount of publicity as other health issues,” said Dr. Hyder. “Traffic crashes rank as a leading cause of death worldwide, ahead of malaria and measles. Two pedestrians are killed for every driver killed. This rate increases in developing nations where pedestrians and vehicles share the same roads.”
Dr. Hyder, part of an international panel of road safety experts organized by the Task Force for Child Survival and Development, will address road traffic injuries in developing nations. Other presenters will look at various aspects of road traffic injuries, such as how the UN can contribute to road safety.
Dr. Hyder, who is also the Secretary of the Global Road Traffic Injury Research Network, explained that traffic accidents kill more than one million people each year, injure tens of millions more and cost developing countries twice as much as they receive in international aid.
“Road traffic injuries are clearly an issue that needs to be addressed nationally and globally,” said Dr. Hyder.
Members of the road safety panel include representatives from United Nations Development Program, UNICEF, the World Bank Group, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) Foundation for the Automobile and Society, the Bone and Joint Decade and the Task Force for Child Survival and Development.
Public Affairs Media Contact for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Kenna Brigham or Tim Parsons at 410-955-6878 or paffairs@jhsph.edu. Photographs of Adnan Hyder are available upon request.