Working towards 2030 road safety targets, the need for specific rural and remote children strategies

Abstract

Introduction: Despite the importance of child road traffic death, the knowledge about rural child road traffic death in Australia is limited.

Objective: To explore the difference of child road traffic death between urban and rural areas.

Design: This study was a retrospective analysis of road traffic death in Australia among children and adolescents aged 0-19 registered between 1 January 2009 and 30 June 2019.

Results: During the study period, there were 1757 child road traffic death in Australia, and the crude mortality rate was 2.96 per 100 000 population. The crude mortality rate in remote (8.83 per 100 000 population) and very remote (11.08 per 100 000 population) areas was much higher than major cities (1.83 per 100 000 population), inner regional (5.14 per 100 000 population) and outer regional (5.91 per 100 000 population).

Conclusions: Specific targets are needed to address the burden of child road traffic death in Australia around rurality, as it is a significant risk factor of child road traffic death.

Keywords: child; regional health planning; rural population; traffic accidents; trauma.