Public health issues arise from Transportation

The importance of transportation network for our daily life is significant. Transport is an essential component of modern life. It provides us with accesses to work, school, shopping, social network and recreation. However, for public health, transportation brings both positive convenience and negative influences.

There is a series of direct and indirect health impacts arising from transport. It includes: air pollution, noise, climate changes, and road traffic injuries.

It is clear that transport is a significant source of air pollution. Air pollution form motor vehicles that burn fossil fuels. It along with other sources such as industry and home heating, impacts on public health. Motor vehicles in New Zealand emit air pollutants to the same extent as in other countries. Recent New Zealand research has estimated the ratio of mortality attributed to vehicle emissions compared with road traffic injuries to be 0.8. To be more specific, for adults aged over 30 years, there were 200 premature deaths attributed to emissions compared with a road toll of 243.

According to the World Health Organization, transport is the main source of noise pollution in European. Recently, there is news reporting that there is growing scientific evidence on the effects of noise on health outcomes. That health outcome includes physical and mental wellbeing. Impaired communication, disturbed sleep, impaired school and work performance, annoyance, depression and aggression are all the possible effective by the noise. However, New Zealand research shows very little data on noise levels form transport or the effects on the health and wellbeing of communities.

There is strong evidence that most of the global warning of the past 50 years is due to human activity. And transportation pollution is one of the major contributors. Potential implications for human health arising from climate change include increased mortality form extremes of temperature, increased rates of waterborne disease due to flooding, higher rates of skin cancers due to ozone layer depletion and increased vector-borne disease such as dengue fever.

A Road traffic injury is one of the most significant, effects of transport on health which include both deaths and non-fatal injuries resulting from motor vehicle crashes. The police reported that ‘in 1999 New Zealand’s rate of traffic-related deaths was 13.3 deaths per 100,000 people. This was below the United States at 15.5 deaths per 100,000, but higher than other comparable countries such as Australia (9.3), Canada (9.7), United Kingdom (6.0) and Ireland (11.0). New Zealand’s high road accident fatality rate is partly due to the high number of vehicles per capita. However the rate per vehicle is also one of the highest in developed countries’.

Transportation is like a couteau in our life. The both sides of this tool could not be neglected by either government or us.