How the public health playbook can help reduce traffic fatalities

Each year, traffic accidents claim thousands of lives and injure many more throughout the United States. Many of these tragedies are the result of individual decisions like skipping a seat belt, driving impaired, running a red light, or disregarding work zone speed restrictions.

These are dangerous behaviors, but as successful public health campaigns have shown us, behavior can be changed. Evidence-based communication strategies have helped reduce tobacco use and drug overdoses, control diabetes, and prevent infectious disease nationwide. For example, our work with the National Cancer Institute on the SmokefreeTXT initiative produced a smoking quit rate (14%) among program participants that was twice the national average (7%).

Keys to success of the SmokefreeTXT initiative were creative imagery and copy that truly resonated with target audiences. By taking a similar approach to building traffic safety campaigns, agencies at the federal, state, and local levels can help prevent traffic accidents and save countless lives in the process.

The five key tenets of public health campaigns

Successful public health campaigns are grounded in theory and behavior-change principles such as social norms, risk perception, and efficacy. They’re also thoughtfully crafted and employ these key tenets:

1. Prioritize human-centered campaign development

Changing behavior requires an understanding of how and why people make decisions, calculate risk, and choose to take risky actions. That understanding comes not only from demographic data but also from factors such as language, culture, and lived experience. When campaigns are grounded in these insights, they are better positioned to influence behavior and achieve measurable outcomes.

2. Enlist the right messengers

As agencies conduct this audience research, they can identify and engage credible community members who can help deliver the campaign’s messages. Incorporating feedback loops and leveraging partnerships with local organizations can strengthen messaging while demonstrating that community input is shaping decisions—all of which can positively influence behavior change.

3. Test concepts for accuracy, preference, and impact

Once messaging is developed, it must be rigorously tested. Consistent quantitative and qualitative evaluation helps agencies ensure message clarity and emotional salience, reduce the chance of misunderstanding, and avoid unintended consequences.

4. Deploy messages where audiences live, work, and play

Agencies should take a multilayered approach to media buying that includes precision targeting in digital and social media ads and place-based, out-of-home radio and print placements. They can also consider offline touchpoints by engaging community partners in sharing key messages.

5. Measure and refine strategies continuously

Throughout the campaign, agencies should track metrics that evaluate reach, engagement, and self-reported and observed behavior change. Based on those measurements, agencies can make adjustments to improve the overall strategy, keeping it on track for success. Make refinements and adjustments to the campaign based on performance insights.

Pairing campaigns with enforcement drives measurable safety gains

When communication strategies are built on these tenets, they’re more likely to influence road safety behaviors. And when paired with visible law enforcement, these campaigns can lead to impressive outcomes. States and municipalities that have pursued this two-pronged strategy are seeing positive progress:

• North Carolina adopted its “Click It or Ticket” campaign to increase seatbelt use in 1993 and “Booze It & Lose It” drunk driving prevention campaign one year later. Both campaigns were so successful they’ve been replicated nationwide.
• After Ohio passed a law increasing penalties for distracted driving, a communication and enforcement plan spearheaded by the state’s Traffic Safety Office and Department of Transportation was credited with contributing to a statewide trend of reduced crash risks and fatalities.

Making American roads safer, together

Every American deserves to arrive home safely at the end of every day. By following the example of successful public health behavior change campaigns, agencies at all levels of government have the power to make that happen.

The principles listed here—particularly those about identifying trusted messengers and forging local partnerships—are essential to building communication campaigns that stick.

Paired with effective law enforcement, these evidence-based campaigns can help agencies sustainably shift norms and deter risky actions.

Through collaboration, accountability, and innovation, agencies and the communities they serve can turn awareness into action—and make our roads safer for all.