Promoting Public Health and Safety: A Predictive Modeling Software Analysis on Perceived Road Fatality Contributory Factors

Extensive literature search was conducted to computationally analyze the relationship between key perceived road fatality factors and public health impacts, in terms of mortality and morbidity. Heterogeneous sources of data on road fatality and that based on interview questionnaire on European road drivers’ perception were sourced. Computational analysis was performed on these data using the Multilayer Perceptron model within the dtreg predictive modeling software. Driver factors had the highest relative significance. Drivers played significant role as causative agents of road accidents. A good degree of correlation was also observed when compared with results obtained by previous researchers. Sweden, UK, Finland, Denmark, Germany, France, Netherlands, and Austria, where road safety targets were set and EU targets adopted, experienced a faster and sharper reduction of road fatalities. However, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Portugal experienced slow, but little reduction in cases of road fatalities. Spain experienced an increase in road fatalities possibly due to road fatalities enhancing factors. Estonia, Slovenia, Cyprus, Hungry, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland experienced a fluctuating but decreasing trend. Enforcement of road safety principles and regulations are needed to decrease the incidences of fatal accidents. Adoption of the EU target of -50% reductions of fatalities in all countries will help promote public health and safety. Keywords- Fatality factors, public health, road fatality, road safety. 1. BACKGROUND Road fatalities are currently one of the major problems of public health. It represents one of the major problems in many European countries associated with high rates of mortality. The impact of this menace ranges from mild to increasingly alarming and devastating consequences, which acts as potential threat to public health. Road fatalities incidence among European countries has been a major concern over the years due to perceived contributory and other causative factors [1-5]. One of the ways to effectively control road fatalities is to identify and control the key causative and perceived contributory factors. African Journal of Computing & ICT Reference Format: O.O. Oluwagbemi (2012). Promoting Public Health and Safety: A Predictive Modeling Software Analysis on Perceived Road Fatality Contributory Factors. Afr J. of Comp & ICTs. Vol 5, No. 5. pp 23-36 © African Journal of Computing & ICT September , 2012 - ISSN Despite concerted efforts by governmental agencies, public and private non-governmental health agencies to offer effective control measures to eradicate road fatalities, the problem still persists. Over the years, computational insights have been applied on developing control measures for road accidents and fatalities [6-9]. The aim of this survey was to conduct computational analysis on perceived road fatality causative factors among some European countries towards promoting public health. The objectives were to provide for better understanding of the importance of key classified underlying perceived road accident contributory factors in explaining the number of road fatalities at country level and to explain the impact of reducing fatalities and its effects on public health, based on survey results. This study explored the application of a computational approach towards classifying perceived road fatality contributory factors, based on available heterogeneous sources of data. The results presented in this research and the recommendations thereafter, were intended to facilitate the promotion of public health and safet