Effectiveness of Communication Actions on the Reduction of Road Traffic Accidents Among Motorcyclists: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Vulnerable road users, including motorcyclists, account for more than half of all road traffic fatalities worldwide. Communication actions are an essential part of prevention both in Africa and in the world. This study aimed to review the available scientific studies on the effectiveness of communication actions for the reduction of road traffic accidents among motorcyclists. We carried out an automatic search on PubMed using an equation and a manual search on Google Scholar using keywords and the bibliographic references of the studies generated by the automatic search. Using this strategy, 155 articles were identified, 16 of which were eliminated as duplicates. Thus, 139 were screened by reading the titles, abstracts, and full-texts. In the end, 13 articles met the inclusion criteria. The included articles provided evidence of the effectiveness of communication actions on the reduction of risk factors for the occurrence or severity of road traffic accidents. However, communication actions alone seem insufficient to achieve a sustainable and significant reduction in road traffic accidents, road traffic injuries, or road traffic fatalities. This confirms the need to integrate all road safety promotion strategies to act simultaneously on the various risk factors for the occurrence or severity of road traffic accidents and thereby significantly reduce their incidence and associated consequences.