A decade of child pedestrian safety in England: a bayesian spatio-temporal analysis

Abstract

Background Child pedestrian injury is a public health and health equality challenge worldwide, including in high-income countries. However, child pedestrian safety is less-understood, especially over long time spans. The intent of this study is to understand factors affecting child pedestrian safety in England over the period 2011–2020. Methods We conducted an area-level study using a Bayesian space-time interaction model to understand the association between the number of road crashes involving child pedestrians in English Local Authorities and a host of socio-economic, transport-related and built-environment variables. We investigated spatio-temporal trends in child pedestrian safety in England over the study period and identified high-crash local authorities. Results We found that child pedestrian crash frequencies increase as child population, unemployment-related claimants, road density, and the number of schools increase. Nevertheless, as the number of licensed vehicles per capita and zonal-level walking/cycling increase, child pedestrian safety increases. Generally, child pedestrian safety has improved in England since 2011. However, the socio-economic inequality gap in child pedestrian safety has not narrowed down. In addition, we found that after adjusting for the effect of covariates, the rate of decline in crashes varies between local authorities. The presence of localised risk factors/mitigation measures contributes to variation in the spatio-temporal patterns of child pedestrian safety. Conclusions Overall, southern England has experienced more improvement in child pedestrian safety over the last decade than the northern regions. Our study revealed socio-economic inequality in child pedestrian safety in England. To better inform safety and public health policy, our findings support the importance of a targeted system approach, considering the identification of high-crash areas while keeping track of how child pedestrian safety evolves over time.

Pedestrian Road Traffic Accidents in Metropolitan Areas: GIS-Based Prediction Modelling of Cases in Mashhad, Iran

“…Street intersections [16], the density of two-lane roads [17,18], the massive number of vehicles [19] travelling at excessive speeds due to ineffective speed limits [20], the lack of clear crossing routes for pedestrians and the pavement dysconnectivity are all important variables with respect to accidents [21][22][23]. Finally, socioeconomic factors such as population density, youth density, and residential areas are associated with the number of PTAs in each neighbourhood [14,[24][25][26].…”

“…The subjects that have drawn particular attention from academics in road safety and urban planning in recent years are pedestrian road analysis and prediction. The most recent literature demonstrates the significance of built environment characteristics for children and adolescent PTAs [24,53]. However, few studies have considered both the built environment and socioeconomic factors when modelling children's and adolescents' involvement in traffic accidents from a spatial perspective [54].…”