Road safety research in the context of low- and middle-income countries: Macro-scale literature analyses, trends, knowledge gaps and challenges

Road users in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are overrepresented in road trauma statistics. Despite the relative success of many high-income countries (HICs) in reducing deaths on their roads, not much tangible progress has been made in LMICs. Also, on the research front, the vast majority of road safety knowledge has been emerging from institutes of HICs. Considering significant differences in driving culture, legislation, and traffic law enforcement between LMICs and HICs, it seems essential that research on road safety within LMICs intensifies beyond the existing rate to produce the much-needed local knowledge and to develop initiatives that meet their safety needs and upgrade their practices. To facilitate this, here, the landscape and temporal trends of road safety research in LMICs are analyzed while contrasting them with those of the general scholarly literature on road safety. It is estimated that slightly less than 10% of the road safety research has been undertaken in the contexts of LMICs, which is extremely disproportionate considering the fact that most road traffic deaths and injuries occur in LMICs. Questionnaire-based research on socio-psychological aspects of driving, cycling, and walking as well as statistical modelling of road crash data seem to have made up the dominant focus of LMIC researchers within the recent years. Areas of road safety research that are underrepresented in LMIC studies are also identified in this work. Patterns of authorship and co-authorship in LMIC studies are also analyzed at the level of countries, organizations, and authors. It is hoped that this effort can contribute to further invigoration of road safety research in LMICs and to highlighting the current knowledge gaps, while also giving better recognition to active road safety researchers of LMICs, and thereby, prompting more international collaborations in this domain.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2021.105513
• Record URL:
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925753521003568
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/09257535
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Haghani, Milad
  • Behnood, Ali
  • Dixit, Vinayak
  • Oviedo-Trespalacios, Oscar
• Publication Date: 2022-2

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Serial:
  • Safety Science
  • Volume: 146
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0925-7535
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09257535

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Developing countries; Highway safety; Low income groups; Research; Socioeconomic factors
• Subject Areas: Highways; Research; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01786124
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 26 2021 2:26PM