Schönebeck S., Chanove A., Kontaxi A., Marino I., Wisch M., Saadé J., Hynd D., Smith L., Yannis G., “A method to estimate the number of people suffering from long-term consequences”, at the Proceedings of the 8th IRTAD International Conference, Athens, 15-17 April 2026.

Road traffic injuries remain a major public health challenge in Europe, not only because of the number of people killed each year, but also due to the substantial burden carried by survivors who sustain serious and long-lasting consequences. While fatality figures are well documented, serious non-fatal injuries and their long-term impacts remain largely undocumented. This stems from a structural limitation: national crash databases rarely include medically validated information on injury severity or long-term disability outcomes. As a result, the true burden of serious injuries and functional impairments is insufficiently captured. Thus, bridging this information gap is essential for supporting evidence-based road safety policies and monitoring progress toward EU targets for reducing serious injuries. The present paper is a first approach towards addressing this gap by developing and applying a harmonised methodology to estimate both the number of seriously injured people (defined as MAIS3+ according to the Abbreviated Injury Scale, AIS) and the number of people who suffer long-term consequences (LTC) following road traffic crashes in Europe. The work, which is part of the Horizon Europe project IMPROVA, builds on detailed in-depth crash investigation data (VOIESUR, RAIDS, GIDAS) available from project partners, combined with national police-reported crash data from Germany, Great Britain and France, and is subsequently extrapolated to the European level through the Community database on road crashes, CARE.