How will self-driving cars affect public health?

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are the wave of the future in the automobile industry, and there’s extensive discussion about the impacts on transportation, society, the economy, and the environment.

Less attention, however, has been focused on the potential health impacts of self-driving vehicles.

To address that gap, researchers developed a conceptual model to identify these health impacts systematically. They identified 32 transportation-related risk factors that affected health, and concluded that 17 could negatively affect public health, while eight could have a positive impact. There were seven areas of uncertain implications that require further investigation.