Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the 2019 School-Based Awareness Campaign on Road Driving in the Municipalities of Cotonou and Abomey-Calavi in Benin

Being the leading death cause among young people in the world, road accidents are avoidable through the adoption of simple attitudes and behaviors. Handicap International Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) has launched an awareness campaign in secondary schools in the municipalities of Cotonou and Abomey-Calavito bring young Beninese users to adopt good attitudes and safe behavior while driving on the road. This study aims at assessing the effectiveness of this awareness campaign. It was an evaluative cross-sectional here-elsewhere type study, held in fourteen high schools in the cities of Cotonou and Abomey-Calavi, of which seven benefited from the campaign and seven did not. In each school, students were selected on the basis of two-stage random sampling. 656 students, 309 of whom were sensitized and 347 of whom were not, were included in this study. The campaign was quite effective. Students, teachers, and school officials’ perceptions of the campaign were positive. In addition, the sensitized students had a better level of knowledge (p = 0.001) and reported safer behaviors (p = 0.003) while driving on the road than those who were not aware. Although the effects are positive, they are still very small. Efforts must be continued and much remains to be done.