Post-crash Rehabilitation Readiness: A New Frontier for Road Safety and Health Systems

Road traffic injuries remain a major global health and development challenge, causing 1.19 million deaths annually and leaving millions of survivors with long-term functional limitations — disproportionately affecting people in low- and middle-income countries and working-age populations. Despite this burden, rehabilitation remains insufficiently integrated into post-crash and emergency response systems. Survivors who could recover functioning with timely rehabilitation instead experience avoidable long-term disability, reduced workforce participation, and increased dependency on care systems.
This high-level session positions rehabilitation as a core component of resilient health systems and universal health coverage — not a downstream service, but a strategic health system function that determines whether survival translates into recovery. Aligned with the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021–2030 and the global UHC agenda, the session will advance a systems-level policy agenda across four strategic pathways:
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Integrating rehabilitation across the continuum of care, from emergency response to community reintegration
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Strengthening rehabilitation workforce capacity and multidisciplinary coordination across levels of care
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Embedding rehabilitation within primary care and health system planning for continuity and access
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Mobilising sustainable financing and policy commitments to scale post-crash rehabilitation

The session will culminate in a call to action to embed early rehabilitation within Post-Crash Response Readiness frameworks, positioning it as essential to resilient health systems, functional recovery, and inclusive development.