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aip-foundation.org

Viet Nam National Helmet Wearing Campaign and mandatory helmet law

Also: Vietnam helmet law 2007 · AIP Foundation national helmet campaign

Year-long national media campaign (TV commercials, billboards, concerts, celebrity ambassadors) run by the Asia Injury Prevention (AIP) Foundation with the Vietnamese government ahead of Decision 32, which made helmets compulsory for all motorcycle riders and passengers on all roads from 15 December 2007. Follow-on campaigns from 2011 targeted child helmet use.

Years
2007
Country
Vietnam
Budget
US$1.5M for the year-long National Helmet Wearing Campaign (AIP Foundation letter, December 2007)
Topic
Injury preventionTraffic safety
Asks people to
StartSupport a policy
Strategy
CelebrityPolicy pairedSimple instruction
Channel
EventsOutdoorTVWebsite
Audience
General public
Motorcycle riders and passengers, who make up most road users in Viet Nam.

Evidence

ObservationalPositive

Passmore et al. (2010), WHO Viet Nam, before-after study of all road-traffic injury admissions to 20 provincial and central hospitals, 3 months either side of 15 December 2007: road-traffic head injuries fell 16% (4,683 to 3,522; RR 0.84, 95% CI 0.81-0.87) and road-traffic deaths 18% (566 to 417; RR 0.82, 0.73-0.93). Effect is of the law plus enforcement plus campaign together; the media campaign's separate contribution is not estimated. AIP Foundation reported near-universal helmet use on the first day (advocate's own observation).

Sponsor (who paid)

  • Government of Viet Nam (National Traffic Safety Committee) Foreign government, law and enforcement
  • Asia Injury Prevention Foundation (AIP Foundation) NGO, campaign creator and advocate
  • World Health Organization Viet Nam Multilateral, technical support and evaluation

Credits (who made it)

Not recorded yet.

Sources

  1. Passmore J et al. Impact of mandatory motorcycle helmet wearing legislation on head injuries in Viet Nam: results of a preliminary analysis. Traffic Inj Prev 2010;11(2):202-6 evaluation · 2010 · DOI 10.1080/15389580903497121 · PMID 20373241
  2. Head injury in Vietnam (Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute, reproducing AIP Foundation president Greig Craft's letter of 21 December 2007) history · 2007
  3. Helmets for Kids (EU Road Safety Charter good practice) reference

Research notes

No advertising agency verified. The AIP letter page lists an 'Ogilvy documentary' link without saying what Ogilvy did; credit not added. Later AIP child-helmet campaign: 'When I Grow Up' TV PSA, Hanoi, May 2012 (search snippet from GlobalGiving reports, page 403) and the Helmets for Kids school programme (Johnson & Johnson, from 2012). Pages fetched 2026-10-22: helmets.org letter; PubMed record for Passmore 2010. Helmet-wearing topic coded traffic-safety plus injury-prevention.

Record cases/vn-national-helmet-wearing-campaign.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign