Analyzing the Relationship between Road Safety Pillars and the World Health Organization Member States’ Mortality Rate using Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Abstract

Road deaths phenomenon suggests the development of studies that consider the complex causal relationship between the factors that influence it at the compatible level with the definition of road safety policies. This paper analyzes the influence of 48 road safety performance indicators on the mortality rate of 175 World Health Organization Member States in 2016. Structural equation models were proposed to evaluate the proposition and use of latent variables that represent five major road safety policy areas and the influence on mortality rates. The proposed model structure indicated that management has a strategic role in public policies, having an indirect influence on reducing the mortality rate through safe vehicles, user safety, and safe roads and mobility. The results indicated that policies aimed at encouraging users’ safe behavior were the ones that had the greatest influence in reducing road deaths followed by policies in safer vehicles, road safety management, safer roads and mobility, and post-crash response.