Citation

Li K, Simons-Morton BG, Hingson R. Am. J. Public Health 2013; 103(11): e71-7.

Affiliation

Kaigang Li and Bruce G. Simons-Morton are with the Health Behavior Branch, Division of Intramural Population Health Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, MD. Ralph Hingson is with the Epidemiology and Prevention Research Division, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, American Public Health Association)

DOI

10.2105/AJPH.2013.301296

PMID

24028236

Abstract

Objectives. We examined the prevalence of impaired driving among US high school students and associations with substance use and risky driving behavior. Methods. We assessed driving while alcohol or drug impaired (DWI) and riding with alcohol- or drug-impaired drivers (RWI) in a nationally representative sample of 11th-grade US high school students (n = 2431). We examined associations with drinking and binge drinking, illicit drug use, risky driving, and demographic factors using multivariate sequential logistic regression analysis. Results. Thirteen percent of 11th-grade students reported DWI at least 1 of the past 30 days, and 24% reported RWI at least once in the past year. Risky driving was positively associated with DWI (odds ratio [OR] = 1.25; P < .001) and RWI (OR = 1.09; P < .05), controlling for binge drinking (DWI: OR = 3.17; P < .01; RWI: OR = 6.12; P < .001) and illicit drug use (DWI: OR = 5.91; P < .001; RWI: OR = 2.29; P = .05). DWI was higher for adolescents who drove after midnight (OR = 15.7), drove while sleepy or drowsy (OR = 8.6), read text messages (OR = 11.8), sent text messages (OR = 5.0), and made cell phone calls (OR = 3.2) while driving. Conclusions. Our findings suggest the need for comprehensive approaches to the prevention of DWI, RWI, and other risky driving behavior. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print September 12, 2013: e1-e7. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301296).

Language: en