In less than 20 years, 320 Indigenous Australians aged 17 and over died on New South Wales roads, with thousands more people seriously injured, new research has found.

Published on Wednesday, 'Road transport injury in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in New South Wales, Australia' reveals the stark road trauma figures between 2005-2023.

The research comes from the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, published by the Public Health Association of Australia.

In addition to 320 fatalities, 7,500 First Nations people were seriously injured.

The majority of people seriously injured or killed in a crash were car occupants (52.5 per cent), followed by motorcyclists (24.5), pedestrians (9.7 per cent), cyclists (8.5) and other road users (4.8).

Males accounted for over two thirds of people killed or seriously injured.

Young people (aged 17-29) represented almost half of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people affected.

15 per cent of Indigenous road deaths were pedestrians (15 per cent) - representing the highest proportion of 'maximum severity injuries'. That figure doubles reported data for the general population in NSW, the research found.

Generally, the research found a 22 per cent increase in road transport injuries among Indigenous people since 2013-14.

Professor Courtney Ryder, an ECR injury epidemiologist, Aboriginal academic with ties to Nunga Countries and co-author of the journal, told National Indigenous Times the research took a "strength based-approach".

Factors like holding a drivers licence, wearing a seatbelt, and having more than one person in the car gave a higher chance (eight times, related to seatbelts) of leaving a crash with minor or no injury.

Crashes in non-urban areas of the state were more likely to suffer more serious injury, and that, across all reported crashes, risks of more serious injury increased with speed limit.

Protective factor analysis was restricted to crashes reported by police.

Associate Professor Ryder said this data could be used to inform targeted prevention program and strategy.

"Community-led, culturally appropriate road safety initiatives are the key to turning this around," she said.

"There have been some great Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led road safety initiatives, but up until now there has been a gap in data to help communities develop tailored campaigns and prevention strategies. We haven't had up-to-date Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander road injury data for NSW for 10 years."

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, transport was the third leading cause of death among First Nations people in 2022-23 nationally (data taken from NSW, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory).

Suicide and accidental poisoning were the two causes which ranked higher.

Nationally, First Nations people, compared to non-Indigenous Australians, were 1.6 times as likely to be hospitalised due to a transport accident (2023-24), and 3.8 times as likely to die (2022-23).

Between 2010-11 and 2014-15, transport-related injury was the second leading cause of fatal injuries for First Nations Australians (23 per cent), and fourth leading cause of serious injury (8.2 per cent).

Currently, the NSW Centre for Road Safety operates a number of Aboriginal projects and initiatives.

'Bring the mob home safely' is a current campaign being run.

Associate Professor Ryder said more investment needed in First Nations-led road safety initiatives.

"Road injuries not only cause deaths, but also contribute to lifelong disability, as well as economic and social burden. The findings of this study offer new insights that could be used to develop tailored prevention campaigns. We need more investment in First Nations-led road safety initiatives," she said.

Speaking to National Indigenous Times, Associate Professor Ryder added "to close the inequity gap in this area...government and policy makers really need to ensure that they're working with community to actually target this and translate it in relational and representative ways.

The journal outlines its findings, alongside other research, will inform a prevention intervention workshop with an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Governance Group and will be shared with key government institutes.

The study used resources from the NSW Centre for Road Safety and emergency servives.