(Press-News.org) A study by a Simon Fraser University researcher shows British Columbia has much higher traffic death rates than most northern European countries. Comparisons to the safest country, the Netherlands, suggest B.C. could reduce the number of traffic deaths by more than 200 per year.
It also found that fatality and injury risks varied by travel mode.
"Many studies have shown that overall, considering both potential physical activity benefits and injury risks, cycling and walking are on the whole very healthy travel activities," says SFU health sciences assistant professor Meghan Winters, senior author of the study published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.
However, the study, Exposure-based Traffic Crash Injury Rates of Travel in British Columbia, confirmed using B.C. data that amongst travel modes, cyclists and pedestrians do indeed carry higher injury risk than drivers. It also demonstrated that traffic fatality risks are far lower in other countries, indicating that safety improvements are possible.
"The results fit with the common perception that cyclists and pedestrians are vulnerable road users. However, we were surprised to see how similar the risks were between these two modes," says Winters.
"Another surprise was comparing fatality risk for these modes to public transit and motorcycling (for which we had to look at research from the U.S. since B.C. data was not sufficient). In the U.S., where pedestrian, cyclist, and car exposure-based fatality rates were similar, bus travel had 20 times less risk than other modes, and motorcycle travel 25 times higher risk."
According to the study, injury risks vary by mode of transportation – car, bicycle, and walking – and understanding the differences is important for prevention. It adds that since these travel modes are not used equally, injury rates calculated with a population denominator may reflect differences in burden, not differences in risk, between modes.
Exposure-based denominators take into account factors like the proportion of trips or the distances travelled by each mode. Examples:
Motor-vehicle occupants had the lowest fatality rates using exposure-based denominators (9.6 per 100 million person-trips and .97 per 100 million kms)
Cyclists and pedestrians had similar fatality rates using trip denominators (13.8 vs 14.7 per 100 million person-trips, respectively), but cyclists had a lower rate using distance denominator (2.60 vs 7.37 per 100 million kms)
Winters believes more data about travel behaviour in Canada is needed. Creating a national trip diary could provide researchers with data to help reduce fatalities.
"Since there is no national data collection on travel for travel behaviour data, it is not possible to make comparisons, either within Canada or internationally, that would allow us to identify safer jurisdictions and learn about traffic safety measures that could be adopted here," says Winters.
###
Simon Fraser University is Canada's top-ranked comprehensive university and one of the top 50 universities in the world under 50 years old. With campuses in Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey, B.C., SFU engages actively with the community in its research and teaching, delivers almost 150 programs to more than 30,000 students, and has more than 120,000 alumni in 130 countries.
Simon Fraser University: Engaging Students. Engaging Research. Engaging Communities.
Simon Fraser University
Public Affairs/Media Relations (PAMR)
778.782.3210 www.sfu.ca/pamr
Contact:
Meghan Winters, SFU Health Sciences, 604.315.0484 (cell), mwinters@sfu.ca
Dixon Tam, SFU media relations, 778.782.8742 (office) or 604.417.0881 (cell), dixont@sfu.ca
(Note: Meghan is in California but available to do phone interviews today from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. PST and when she's back in Vancouver on March 1.)
British Columbia traffic deaths could be cut in half
2013-03-01
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Mineral diversity clue to early Earth chemistry
2013-03-01
Washington, D.C.— Mineral evolution is a new way to look at our planet's history. It's the study of the increasing diversity and characteristics of Earth's near-surface minerals, from the dozen that arrived on interstellar dust particles when the Solar System was formed to the more than 4,700 types existing today. New research on a mineral called molybdenite by a team led by Robert Hazen at Carnegie's Geophysical Laboratory provides important new insights about the changing chemistry of our planet as a result of geological and biological processes.
The work is published ...
CETS offers new method to help simplify the study of brain pathologies
2013-03-01
Scientists from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD have developed a new way to identify heterogeneous brain cells by looking at epigenetic variation (the heritable alterations in gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in DNA sequence). With this publicly available new method (named "CETS"), it will be possible to generate neuronal profiles from DNA methylation data, which will simplify the study of several brain pathologies, including depression and age-associated disorders. The study, titled "A cell epigenotype specific model ...
Third radiation belt discovered with UNH-led instrument suite
2013-03-01
DURHAM, N.H. – Although scientists involved in NASA's Van Allen Probes mission were confident they would eventually be able to rewrite the textbook on Earth's twin radiation belts, getting material for the new edition just two days after launch was surprising, momentous, and gratifying.
The Radiation Belt Storm Probes mission, subsequently renamed in honor of the belts' discoverer, astrophysicist James Van Allen, was launched in the pre-dawn hours of August 30, 2012. Shortly thereafter, and well ahead of schedule in normal operational protocol, mission scientists turned ...
Adult sleepwalking is serious condition that impacts health-related quality of life
2013-03-01
DARIEN, IL – A new study found that adult sleepwalking is a potentially serious condition that may induce violent behaviors and affect health-related quality of life.
"We found a higher frequency of daytime sleepiness, fatigue, insomnia, depressive and anxiety symptoms and altered quality of life in patients with sleepwalking compared to the control group," said Yves Dauvilliers, MD, PhD, the study's principal investigator and lead author. Dr. Dauvilliers is professor of physiology and neurology and director of the sleep lab at Gui-de-Chauliac Hospital in Montpellier, ...
Elephants are vanishing from DRC's best-run reserve
2013-03-01
NEW YORK (Feb. 28, 2013) — The Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) largest remaining forest elephant population, located in the Okapi Faunal Reserve (OFR), has declined by 37 percent in the last five years, with only 1,700 elephants now remaining, according to wildlife surveys by WCS and DRC officials. WCS scientists warn that if poaching of forest elephants in DRC continues unabated, the species could be nearly extinguished from Africa's second largest country within ten years.
According to the latest survey, 5,100, or 75 percent, of the reserve's elephants have been ...
New model could lead to improved treatment for early stage Alzheimer's
2013-03-01
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Researchers at the University of Florida and The Johns Hopkins University have developed a line of genetically altered mice that model the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease. This model may help scientists identify new therapies to provide relief to patients who are beginning to experience symptoms.
The researchers report their findings in the current issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
"The development of this model could help scientists identify new ways to enhance brain function in patients in the early stages of the disease," said David ...
Research unearths new dinosaur species
2013-03-01
RAPID CITY, S.D. (Feb. 28, 2013) – A South Dakota School of Mines & Technology assistant professor and his team have discovered a new species of herbivorous dinosaur and published the first fossil evidence of prehistoric crocodyliforms feeding on small dinosaurs.
Research by Clint Boyd, Ph.D., provides the first definitive evidence that plant-eating baby ornithopod dinosaurs were a food of choice for the crocodyliform, a now extinct relative of the crocodile family. While conducting their research, the team also discovered that this dinosaur prey was a previously unrecognized ...
ACC/HRS release appropriate use criteria for ICDs and CRT
2013-03-01
WASHINGTON (Feb. 28, 2013) –The American College of Cardiology and the Heart Rhythm Society, along with key specialty societies, today released appropriate use criteria for implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) and cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). The document provides assessed levels of appropriateness for implanting the devices in 369 real-life clinical scenarios, with the goal of enhancing physician and patient decision making and improving care and health outcomes.
Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators are devices that monitor the heart's rhythms ...
Sea lamprey genome mapped with help from scientists at OU
2013-03-01
Beginning in 2004, a group of scientists from around the globe, including two University of Oklahoma faculty members, set out to map the genome of the sea lamprey. The secrets of how this jawless vertebrate separated from the jawed vertebrates early in the evolutionary process will give insight to the ancestry of vertebrate characters and may help investigators more fully understand neurodegenerative diseases in humans.
David McCauley, associate professor in the Biology Department in the OU College of Arts and Sciences, and Sandra W. Clifton, with the OU Center for Advanced ...
Pour, shake and stir
2013-03-01
TORONTO, Ontario (Feb. 28, 2013) - A diagnostic "cocktail" containing a single drop of blood, a dribble of water, and a dose of DNA powder with gold particles could mean rapid diagnosis and treatment of the world's leading diseases in the near future. The cocktail diagnostic is a homegrown brew being developed by University of Toronto's Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) PhD student Kyryl Zagorovsky and Professor Warren Chan that could change the way infectious diseases, from HPV and HIV to malaria, are diagnosed.
And it involves the same technology ...