Alcohol-impaired driving crashes still account for one-third of all traffic-related deaths in the United States.\u00a0 The annual cost of alcohol-related crashes totals more than $51 billion. Facts such as these continue to drive efforts in communities around the country to reduce impaired driving. Through an agreement funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), CADCA supports local efforts to adopt and implement evidence-based strategies to reduce impaired driving.\u00a0 Under this project, CADCA focuses on bridging the research and practice divide by disseminating evidence-based impaired driving policies and practices to coalition practitioners.<\/p>\n
At the 2014 Mid-Year Training Institute in Orlando, Florida, CADCA hosted a one-day course for coalition attendees to learn about and discuss current research to prevent impaired driving.\u00a0 Five leading researchers from the United States and Canada discussed findings from their own studies, including: trends in alcohol and drug-impaired driving, effective interventions, challenges of enforcement, and community implementation case studies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Researchers<\/strong><\/p>\n Jane Maxwell, Ph.D. Research Interests:<\/strong> trends and patterns of substance abuse in Texas, nationally, and internationally, with special interest on the US-Mexico border; research in patterns of use and abuse of methamphetamine, party drugs, methadone, and other opiate drugs; impaired driving programs; and synthetic estimation techniques.<\/p>\n Maxwell highlighted work from her research investigating the characteristics of drivers with DUIs that were admitted to substance abuse treatment.\u00a0 Her study identified the following:<\/p>\n \nRobyn Robertson<\/strong> Research Interests:<\/strong> justice system, impaired drivers, high-risk offenders, distraction, fatigue, alcohol monitoring and photo enforcement technologies, risk assessment and treatment, older drivers and knowledge transfer.<\/p>\n Robertson presented findings from her research regarding profiles of impaired drivers and ignition interlock programs.\u00a0 She offered the following insights from her work:<\/p>\n \nRobert Saltz, Ph.D. <\/strong> Research Interests:<\/strong> Saltz’s work has centered on ways in which drinking contexts may influence the risk of subsequent injury or death. He has conducted several studies on “responsible beverage service” programs that seek to have bar and restaurant personnel intervene to reduce the risk of intoxication or of driving while impaired.<\/p>\n Saltz highlighted findings from the Safer California Universities Project that evaluated the efficacy of a \u201crisk management\u201d approach to alcohol problem prevention.\u00a0 As part of the project, a number of integrated intervention strategies for off-campus parties were implemented at intervention schools, such as compliance checks, DUI checkpoints, party patrols, etc.\u00a0 In comparison to the control schools, the Safer intervention schools had an equivalent of 6,000 fewer incidents of intoxication at off-campus parties and 4,000 fewer incidents at bars & restaurants.<\/p>\n Traci L. Toomey, Ph.D. <\/strong> Research Interests:<\/strong> policy research; community organizing; prevention of alcohol and tobacco-related problems; and intentional and unintentional injury prevention.<\/p>\n Toomey presented findings from her team\u2019s Minnesota Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS) Project to investigate the involvement of enforcement in impaired driving strategies.\u00a0 An enforcement survey was given to local and state-level enforcement agencies to assess their involvement in four enforcement areas: underage provision, underage sales, impaired driving, and overservice.\u00a0 The results indicate that when local law enforcement agencies:<\/p>\n Mark Wolfson, Ph.D. <\/strong> Research Interests:<\/strong> intended and unintended effects of policies and programs addressing tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use by youth and young adults, and the interaction of nonprofits and government organizations in shaping public policy on alcohol, tobacco, and drug use.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wolfson highlighted the findings from his work on NHTSA\u2019s Demonstration Project on High Visibility Enforcement (HVE) on Underage Drinking.\u00a0 The project utilized four community coalitions to plan and support local law enforcement in conducting 6-7 HVE Waves in their communities.\u00a0 Each community chose a diverse mix of enforcement strategies, including saturation patrols, compliance checks, party patrols, etc.\u00a0 In addition, media corresponded with the waves of enforcement.\u00a0 Wolfson and his colleagues found:<\/p>\n The results indicate that community coalitions should coordinate their media and enforcement efforts, choose a good media message, strategize the best mix of enforcement strategies, avoid punishing youth without holding adults responsible, and evaluate.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alcohol-impaired driving crashes still account for one-third of all traffic-related deaths in the United States.\u00a0 The annual cost of alcohol-related<\/p>","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"template":"","resource_type":[283],"drug_specific_issues":[313],"action_to_do":[],"class_list":["post-17966","resource","type-resource","status-publish","hentry","resource_type-publication","drug_specific_issues-impaired-driving"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nSenior Research Scientist
\nSchool of Social Work
\nUniversity of Texas at Austin\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
\nPresident and CEO
\nTraffic Injury Research Foundation<\/p>\n\n
\nSenior Research Scientist
\nPrevention Research Center
\nPacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE)<\/p>\n
\nProfessor, School of Public Health, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health
\nDirector of the Alcohol Epidemiology Program
\nUniversity of Minnesota<\/p>\n\n
\nProfessor
\nDepartment of Social Sciences and Health Policy
\nWake Forest University School of Medicine<\/p>\n\n