Identifying controlled evaluation studies of road safety interventions

Problem: Worldwide, over one million people die and about 10 million people sustain permanent disabilities each year in road traffic crashes. It is a matter of urgency that effective strategies, especially from existing controlled trials (CTs), are identified for crash prevention programs. Methods: We used word frequency analysis to develop a search strategy of known sensitivity and positive predictive value (PPV) to identify reports of controlled evaluation studies of road safety interventions in the TRANSPORT database. Results: 23,554 records were searched and 319 (1.40%) records of controlled evaluation studies were identified by handsearching, We were unable to devise search strategies that combined acceptable sensitivity and PPV. Impact on industry: Efforts to improve the identification of CTs of road safety interventions are urgently required. This would involve the documentation of the study design in the title, abstract, and methods section of the research report. The study methodology should be carefully and consistently indexed in road safety databases, and editors can encourage appropriate indexing by insisting on the use of structured abstracts that give details of study methodology. (C) 2001 National Safety Council and Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.