School-zone safety interventions linked to improved perceptions in before-and-after study

Researchers used the Haddon matrix and an expert panel to identify road-safety risks around a school and select interventions. Baseline data included 497 schoolchildren, whose mean age was 9.58 years, and 484 parents. The interventions combined increased road-safety education, infrastructure improvements, and a Family-Police-School traffic-assistant model. Outcomes included reported safety perceptions and behaviors, expert assessments of the environment, and reported road traffic injuries (RTIs).

After the interventions, 7.87% more children said they always felt safe walking near the school, and 23.79% more said they never crossed the street at any stretch of the road. The proportion of parents who agreed it was always safe for their child to walk to school alone increased by 11.25%. Participants were generally satisfied, and experts judged the environment to have improved. No RTIs were reported during the one-year study period, either before or after the interventions, so the study cannot establish an effect on injury incidence. The authors note that future work should use objective measures to assess longer-term effectiveness.