Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit Co-Leads Road Safety Course in Fortaleza

Leadership and faculty from the Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit (JH-IIRU), and international partners led a one-week road safety course on the campus of Universidade de Fortaleza (UNIFOR) from August 5-9, 2019. The course, “Implementing Effective Road Safety Programs: Translating evidence to practice for road safety,” invited more than 70 participants from 20+ different cities in Brazil to gain training on the most important aspects of road safety through theoretical and practical sessions tailored for the Brazilian context.

JH-IIRU Director Dr. Abdul Bachani, along with core JH-IIRU faculty Dr. Andres Vecino Ortiz, and partners at the Global Road Safety Partnership and UNIFOR, based the course off of the twice-annual Global Road Safety Leadership Course (GRSLC), which builds leadership capacity to design, advocate for, and implement effective road safety programs and policies.

“This past week here in Fortaleza has demonstrated the investment the city and its local and regional leaders are making to improve road safety,” said Dr. Bachani. “The passion our Brazilian participants have in making their communities better, safer places is inspirational. We look forward to seeing this group apply lessons learned in the course in their day-to-day work.”

With sessions on everything from risk factors and leadership principles to successful cases of multisectoral action for road safety, the comprehensive curriculum sought to generate evidence-based skills and knowledge to the local and regional leaders in road safety, so they can improve design and policies in their own municipalities and departments.

Site visits – to such locations as roadside police checkpoints, bus rapid transit system, and local children’s hospital – provided participants with real-world applications of course content. Also, throughout the course, participants were divided into smaller cohorts for group work, before delivering final presentations at the conclusion of the course.

A number of GRSLC alumni reunited with course organizers. Luiza Amorim (GRSLC 2017), Omar Jacob (rGRSLC 2018), Dante Rosado (GRSLC2017), Flavio Cunto (GRSLC 2018), and Andre Correia (rGRSLC 2019), all led sessions during this offering, demonstrating the real impact that the Global Road Safety Leadership Course is having on creating leaders in road safety.

“It was marvelous,” said Correia, Enforcement Coordinator with the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety in Fortaleza. “We got to share the same [road safety] problems, but even better, we looked for solutions together. We are in a globalized world, we need to find those solutions together.”