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Alcohol-impaired driving in US counties, 2002–2012
- Source :
- Population Health Metrics, Vol 16, Iss 1, Pp 1-7 (2018), Population Health Metrics
- Publication Year :
- 2018
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2018.
-
Abstract
- Background Excessive alcohol consumption and alcohol-impaired driving remain significant public health problems, leading to considerable morbidity and mortality, particularly among younger populations. Methods Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), we employed a small areas modeling strategy to estimate the county-level annual prevalence of alcohol-impaired driving in every United States county for the years 2002 through 2012, the latest year in which county identifiers were publicly available. Results Alcohol-impaired driving episodes declined from 157.0 million in 2002 (prevalence 3.8%: 95% uncertainty interval [UI], 3.7%–4.0%) to 129.7 million in 2012 (prevalence 3.7%: 95% UI, 3.5%–3.8%), a 17.4% decline. There is considerable variation in the prevalence of alcohol-impaired driving at the county level, ranging from 2.0% in the Sitka City Borough of Alaska to 9.3% in Nance County, Nebraska. Clusters of increased alcohol-impaired driving were observed in Northern Wisconsin (Marinette, Florence, Forest, Vilas, Oneida, Iron counties), North Dakota (Cavalier, Pembina, Walsh, Ramsey, Nelson, Benson, Eddy counties) and Montana (Sheridan, Daniels, Roosevelt, Valley, Phillips, Petroleum, Garfield counties). Conclusions This study showed guarded progress with respect to the occurrence of alcohol-impaired driving episodes in the US from 2002 to 2012. Because these data rely on self-report, this likely represents an underestimate of the true prevalence of alcohol-impaired driving in the US. As the US continues to have several million episodes of alcohol-impaired driving each month, renewed efforts are needed to mitigate this high-risk health behavior.
- Subjects :
- Adult
Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Adolescent
Alcohol Drinking
Epidemiology
Impaired driving
lcsh:Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics
Trauma
01 natural sciences
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
03 medical and health sciences
Risk-Taking
Wisconsin
0302 clinical medicine
Prevalence
medicine
Humans
030212 general & internal medicine
0101 mathematics
Driving Under the Influence
Public health
Ethanol
Montana
business.industry
Research
lcsh:Public aspects of medicine
010102 general mathematics
Motor vehicle crash
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Health services research
Nebraska
lcsh:RA1-1270
Excessive alcohol consumption
Borough
North Dakota
Population Surveillance
lcsh:R858-859.7
Female
Self Report
Health behavior
Alcohol
business
Alaska
Demography
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14787954
- Volume :
- 16
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Population Health Metrics
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....71e56a0068973a1bfab7d57fb7c0289d