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Alfred.

Public health has influenced people's lives in a variety of ways, including improving community life, using scientific research to help individuals live healthier lives by using evidence-based systems to encourage healthy lifestyles, embarking on health promotion and policy development, and fighting both chronic and infectious diseases at the local, state, and national levels. Consider the recent pandemic and the infection with monkey pox. Roadway safety is one of the current public health policies affecting the population. Road traffic fatalities are a public health issue as well as one of the leading causes of death in the United States and around the world. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), over 41,000 people died in motor vehicle accidents in the United States in 2010, representing 110 deaths per day (CDC, 2022). 

Furthermore, 2.1 million emergency department visits for injuries caused by motor vehicle accidents were reported in 2020. The United States government spent 430 billion dollars in 2020, including medical costs and lost lives. The causes of these RTAs (Road Traffic Accidents) are attributed to a lack of use of seat belts, excessive speed, drunk driving, and driver fatigue. Bicyclists, child passengers, teen drivers, motorcyclists, and pedestrians are among those killed (Singh, et al. 2016). However, road deaths and injuries can be avoided. There are tried-and-true methods for mitigating this threat. To address the issue, a wide range of effective road safety interventions, as well as a scientific system approach to road safety, are required. Government, industry, stakeholders, civil society organizations, and private companies are all using multidisciplinary approaches. The United States government has a road traffic safety agency (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA) that is responsible for enforcing safety performance and policy for motor vehicles, investigating vehicle defects, and developing interventions based on sound research. The Federal Highway Administration, for example, highlighted programs and initiatives to improve road safety, such as enforcing universal helmet policies in 28 states, including the District of Columbia. It is estimated that 57 percent of motorcycle fatalities in states without universal helmets will occur in 2020. (FHWA, 2020). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has improved driver education, enforcement, and road user fines, as well as the installation of speed cameras on various streets throughout the country. 

Seat belt use in every seat, on every trip, short or long, booster seat, and properly buckled up in the back seat for children to reduce motor vehicle crash death. Choosing not to drive while impaired by alcohol, drugs, or fatigue, as well as driving without distractions like cell phones or texting, are public health policies implemented by the CDC's injury prevention and control division. These include elderly driver safety, pedestrian safety, and motorcycle safety. Nonetheless, given the enormity of the roadway safety issues, one sector's tool cannot solve the problem alone; thus, collaboration for data collection, research on prevention tools, and program implementation have been emphasized through collaborative efforts from the CDC, NHTSA, and other agencies such as the Vital Strategies on high priority projects, and encourage such partnerships on national, state, and local levels (Saha,2020). 

The use of surveillance data has aided in the identification of specific emerging issues, such as the potential impact of airbags on children. Geographic information system technology has aided state and local governments in identifying crash hotspots that require intervention. Through public health policies on roadway safety, intense, short-term, high-visibility safety belt enforcement campaigns and compliance have resulted in increased seat belt safety awareness (Beck, et al. 2019). In collaboration with the CDC, community task forces and preventive services have been using rigorous standards and methodologies to evaluate public health interventions. These interventions have been successful in promoting child safety seat belt policy, alcohol enforcement campaigns, and sobriety checkpoints. With everyone working together, we can reduce traffic deaths by 30% by 2030 and save lives. 

                                                                          References

Beck, L. F., Kresnow, M., & Bergen, G. (2019). Belief about seat belt use and seat belt wearing behavior among front and rear seat passengers in the United States. Journal of Safety Research, 68, 81-88.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2018.12.007

CDC. (2022, September 22). Transportation safety. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/index.html

FHWA. (2022, September 21). Motorcycle safety | FHWA. Federal Highway Administration.  https://highways.dot.gov/safety/other/motorcyclist/motorcycle-safety

Saha, P. (2020). An optimization methodology to improve work zone safety within a limited budget in a roadway network. International Conference on Transportation and Development 2020.  https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784483145.018

Singh, J., Sahni, M., Bilquees, S., Khan, S., & Haq, I. (2016). Reasons for road traffic accidents—victims' perspective. International Journal of Medical Science and Public Health, 5(4), 814.  https://doi.org/10.5455/ijmsph.2016.07112015357

Peta.

According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), annually, 48 million individuals in the U.S get ill, 128,000 citizens are hospitalized and 3000 are deceased from food borne diseases (Thatte,2019). Approximately 1 in 6 people in the US get sick from contaminated food every year (Thatte,2019). Food Safety Modernization Act rules only apply to foods regulated by the Food Drug Administration (Thatte,2019). This is an important portion of the United States food supply, which is about 75% (Thatte,2019). The additional 25% is controlled by other agencies, such as the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which manages meat, poultry, and many dairy products (Thatte,2019).

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) authorized into regulation by President Obama, allows FDA to improve protection of public health by reinforcing the food safety system (FDA, 2018).It permits FDA to give attention to preventing food safety issues rather than just predominantly relying on responding to issues after they occur (FDA, 2018).The law also offers FDA with new implementation abilities, intended to accomplish advanced rates of compliance with prevention and risk-based food safety principles (FDA, 2018).The FDA law also provides FDA significant new tools to hold imported foods to the equivalent standards as domestic foods and guides FDA to construct an combined national food safety system in corporation with state and local authorities (FDA, 2018). With this law in place, FDA is now obligated to mandate which requires comprehensive, science-based preventive controls across the food supply (FDA, 2018).

Some mandates include: Mandatory preventative controls for food facilities which is the facilities requiring to implement a written preventive control plan, Mandatory produce safety standards which means that the FDA must establish science-based minimum standards for the safe production and harvesting of fruits and vegetables and Authority to precent intentional contamination which requires the FDA to issue regulations to protect against the intentional adulteration of food (FDA, 2018). There have been many protocols that were taken in reply to numerous serious foodborne illness outbreaks that had happened in the U.S. food sector, such as the prevalent difficulties with E. Coli in the spinach supply in 2006 and the salmonella cases from a single peanut processing facility in Georgia in 2008 (MERCIER, 2021).The last outbreak initiated 700 cases of salmonella poisoning, which included seven deaths, and caused  a criminal investigation for the former CEO of the company responsible in 2015 and was found guilty of knowledgeably shipping contaminated food across state lines (MERCIER, 2021).

 

Reference

 

FDA. (2018, January 30).  Background on the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). U.S. Food And Drug Administration. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from  https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-modernization-act-fsma/background-fda-food-safety-modernization-act-fsma

 

MERCIER, S. (2021, December 3).  The Impact of the Food Safety Modernization Act. AG Web: Farm Journal. Retrieved October 1, 2022, from  https://www.agweb.com/opinion/impact-food-safety-modernization-act

 

Thatte, D. (2019, October 17).  The Food Safety Modernization Act in a Nutshell. NIST. Retrieved October 1, 2022, from  https://www.nist.gov/blogs/manufacturing-innovation-blog/food-safety-modernization-act-nutshell

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