Road Traffic Injuries and the Built Environment in Bogotá, Colombia, 2015–2019: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

• Published in: Journal of urban health 2024-08, Vol.101 (4), p.815-826
• Main Authors: Zewdie, Hiwot Y., Sarmiento, Olga Lucia, Pinzón, Jose David, Wilches-Mogollon, Maria A., Arbelaez, Pablo Andres, Baldovino-Chiquillo, Laura, Hidalgo, Dario, Guzman, Luis Angel, Mooney, Stephen J., Nguyen, Quynh C., Tasdizen, Tolga, Quistberg, D. Alex
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Built environment; Clustering; Collision mortality; Collisions; Epidemiology; Fatalities; Health Informatics; Injuries; Injury analysis; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Neighborhoods; Original Article; Pedestrian safety; Pedestrians; Police; Public Health; Regression analysis; Regression models; Residential density; Roads; Roads & highways; Statistical analysis; Traffic accidents & safety; Traffic signals; Urban environments
• ISSN: 1099-3460; 1468-2869; 1468-2869
• DOI: 10.1007/s11524-024-00842-2

Nine in 10 road traffic deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Despite this disproportionate burden, few studies have examined built environment correlates of road traffic injury in these settings, including in Latin America. We examined road traffic collisions in Bogotá, Colombia, occurring between 2015 and 2019, and assessed the association between neighborhood-level built environment features and pedestrian injury and death. We used descriptive statistics to characterize all police-reported road traffic collisions that occurred in Bogotá between 2015 and 2019. Cluster detection was used to identify spatial clustering of pedestrian collisions. Adjusted multivariate Poisson regression models were fit to examine associations between several neighborhood-built environment features and rate of pedestrian road traffic injury and death. A total of 173,443 police-reported traffic collisions occurred in Bogotá between 2015 and 2019. Pedestrians made up about 25% of road traffic injuries and 50% of road traffic deaths in Bogotá between 2015 and 2019. Pedestrian collisions were spatially clustered in the southwestern region of Bogotá. Neighborhoods with more street trees (RR, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.82–0.98), traffic signals (0.89, 0.81–0.99), and bus stops (0.89, 0.82–0.97) were associated with lower pedestrian road traffic deaths. Neighborhoods with greater density of large roads were associated with higher pedestrian injury. Our findings highlight the potential for pedestrian-friendly infrastructure to promote safer interactions between pedestrians and motorists in Bogotá and in similar urban contexts globally.