#WDoR2025

The Department of Health in Emergencies and Disasters at the School of Public Health, in collaboration with the Vice-Presidency for Health of Yazd Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences are honored to join the WDoR campaign 2025.

As every year, the objectives of WDoR 2025 are to provide a platform for road traffic victims and their families to:

• remember all people killed and seriously injured on the roads;
• acknowledge the crucial work of the emergency services;
• draw attention to the generally trivial legal response to culpable road deaths and injuries and advocate for an appropriately serious response;
• advocate for better support for road traffic victims and victim families;
• promote evidence-based actions to prevent and eventually stop further road traffic deaths and injuries

Every year, millions more road victims are added to the current toll of over 50 million killed and hundreds of millions injured since the first road death. It is an actual pandemic, affecting primarily our vulnerable and our young, which in addition to the trauma of injury and bereavement has also a devastating economic impact for countries, communities and families. Therefore, during the Decade of Action 2021-2030 the World Day has an important role of helping to achieve the 50% road casualty reduction target.

Lost talents

When people are killed or severely injured in road traffic collisions before their time, the world loses more than just individuals — it loses their potential, their ideas, their future impact on society. They become lost talents. And lost talents become the soul of our platform.

The emptiness left behind after someone is killed or severely injured on the road is powerfully conveyed through scenes of an empty stage, a deserted sports field, or a quiet room — spaces where their presence is deeply missed, and their absence is painfully felt.

The statistic that “of all-cause mortality, road traffic injury remains the leading cause of death for children and young people” is straight-forward and haunting. That’s why we let it speak for itself and directly use it as the main message of our “Lost talents” campaign.