European comparisons of child pedestrian safety
The UK has a poor position for child pedestrian safety compared to other western European countries. It has
- a high child pedestrian death rate
- high levels of childhood inactivity and obesity.
High UK child pedestrian death rate
There are eleven western European countries with lower child pedestrian death rates than the UK, and five of these have rates less than half that of the UK - see below for notes and source.
High UK proportions of overweight and obese children
Notes and sources
High UK child pedestrian death rate
The data is taken from the WHO European Detailed Mortality Database [1], last updated November 2014, data downloaded 7th and 8th July 2015. The figures compared were the most recent three years of data, which for most countries was 2010 to 2012.
The countries compared were western European countries with the exception of three: Iceland, Luxembourg and Malta. These three were excluded because of the small numbers of deaths (one per country) and the small populations, resulting in large random fluctuations in the rates.
The error bars show the 95% confidence intervals for the rates, and indicate the likely size of the random variation - read more on confidence intervals and why they are needed at www.travelindependent.org.uk/confidence_intervals.html .
The ICD-10 mortality code included were V01 to V09 (pedestrian deaths from collision with any vehicle).
The age groups included were 0-19 years.
High UK proportions of overweight and obese children
The chart shows data from the 2014 OECD report [2].References
| [1] | WHO European Detailed Mortality Database http://data.euro.who.int/dmdb/ |
| [2] | OECD (2014) Obesity update June 2014 http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/Obesity-Update-2014.pdf or download from here. |