Drinking and driving continues to be a major public health and traffic safety problem, despite decades of efforts to reduce its consequences. The reductions in alcohol-related traffic fatalities in the early 1990s associated with the raising of the legal drinking age to 21 and the social and political impacts of the anti-drunk driving movement (e.g., Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Remove Intoxicated Drivers) have not been sustained, a pattern that is true in the U.S and many other countries. Drinking and driving research has focused mainly on issues of deterrence, prevention, and other interventions, to the detriment of research on complex models and etiology. Complex models that include psychological, personality, deterrence, substance abuse, family, and neighborhood measures are necessary to identify additional avenues for interventions. Otherwise, efforts to further reduce drinking and driving behaviors and consequences will be of limited effectiveness. The sample for this study was originally recruited for an earlier study of drinking, drug use and criminal behavior. Three waves of data were collected from 625 young men during the transition period from late adolescence to early adulthood (ages 16-22). The subjects will be re-interviewed by telephone to provide a 10-year wave-4 follow-up. The project also will examine topics associated with neighborhood impacts on behavior, including alternative geospatial measures.
The specific aims are: 1) To develop models of the initiation of drinking-driving behavior. Data from multiple assessment domains during the critical period of initializing drinking-driving behavior will be used to develop models, using survival analysis, logistic regression, and SEM for initiation and early continuation. Specific hypotheses and models suggested by the drinking-driving and broader criminological/developmental literature will be examined (e.g., drinking and driving predicted by peer, family, and individual factors). 2) To develop long-term prospective models of continued drinking-driving behavior. There are no major prospective studies of drinking-driving available in the current literature. We will examine whether the same or different factors account for the long-term continuation of drinking and driving. How do the trajectories change for these longer-term outcomes? A combined theoretical model of initiation and continuation will be developed based on the results from aims 1 and 2. 3) To examine the impact of various geospatial methods of aggregating point data (e.g., alcohol outlets) into geographic units for use in multilevel and individual models of drinking and driving. Contextual data will be integrated into aims 1 and 2 in multilevel models. However, little is known about the impact of methods of aggregation of context data in these models. The study will compare the impact of four different methods of aggregating point data into geographic units.
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