The present study attempted to validate modified versions of laboratory measures of behavioral impairment from alcohol for use in the field. A total of 195 students at various BAC levels, participated during two outdoor university-sponsored events. In addition to taking nonbehavioral measures of impairment, each subject was asked to perform and evaluate a reaction time task, balance test, and give a verbal index of impairment. The actual BAC of each subject was determined using a breath-alcohol testing machine. The results indicated that self-reported measures of impairment were the best predictors of BAC. Of the behavioral measures, reaction time and body balance performance accounted for the highest portion of the variance in predicting BAC. Subjects reported that actual BAC feedback would most likely result in behavior change, followed by performance on the progressive body balance and reaction time tasks. It was noted, however, that as BAC increased, poor test performance was less likely to result in behavior change. The need for continued research into behavioral measures of alcohol impairment are discussed as a means of promoting third-party intervention and"socially responsible drinking". / Master of Science

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-136). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

No description available.

The purpose of this research is to describe and analyze the public relations elements of Mothers Against Drunk Driving’s campaign to prevent underage drinking. The focus will be Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and its current communication strategies and possible future initiatives. An analysis of underage drinking in the United States provides the necessary background for MADD’s change in its prior mission statement and goals. The public relations strategies of MADD will be analyzed through the characteristics of organizational excellence, models of public relations and focus principally on the factors for self-directed change. After discussing the basic foundations of MADD’s current campaign, an analysis of underage drinking on college campuses explains the need for a separate campaign for the college community. The results of MADD’s public relations and campaign will be discussed in closing. / text

The purpose of this study was to determine if a police officer's use of alcohol in his/her personal life affected their arrest decision in impaired driving cases. A survey was developed and reviewed by a jury of experts consisting of traffic safety specialists from across Indiana, to gather information concerning officer demographics, use of alcohol, and belief in the importance of impaired driving enforcement. Results indicated that sixty-one (61) officers fit the criteria of 1) patrolling during darkness hours throughout the year 2002, and 2) were complete the survey. Most officers were male (88%), between twenty-one and thirty-five years of age (79%), and had less than ten years of law enforcement experience (74%).The data were analyzed using univariate, bivariate, and ANOVA to test the null hypothesis. There was no statistical relationship between the decision to arrest and the personal use of alcohol by the officer. There was also no statistical relationship between the decision to arrest and any of the demographic categories. The only item that showed a statistical relationship was between the decision to arrest and an officer indicating they believed the problem of impaired driving was somewhat important. / Department of Physiology and Health Science

Abstract The proportion of single-parent families has increased in the last few decades world-wide, mostly due to high divorce rates. Also in Finland growing numbers of children spend part of their childhood in single-parent families. The aim of this study was to investigate in a longitudinal perspective, the possible long-term effects of the childhood family structure on psychological, physical and criminal outcomes of an offspring during adulthood. A large, prospectively collected general population birth cohort (n= 11 017), the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort, was used as a study population. This database provided the information on childhood family structure of cohort members with additional information of sociodemographic factors of the family and of the child. Information concerning physical and psychiatric illnesses were gathered from the Finnish Hospital Discharge Register (FHDR). Death certificates and the information from national crime registers were also obtained. Females with a single-parent family background were more commonly hospital-treated (61.3 % vs. 56.7 %) for any physical condition than females with a two-parent family background. For males such difference in overall physical illness was not found. Both females and males from single-parent families had more commonly been hospital-treated for some diagnoses in the ICD-category of "injury and poisoning" than had other cohort members. Furthermore, females from single-parent families had also more commonly been treated due to pregnancy-related conditions such as induced abortions. During the follow-up time (16 to 28 years of age) 117 (90 males, 27 females) cohort members had died. Males with single-parent family background exhibited an increased mortality risk, especially due to suicides (OR=2.5, 95% CI 1.1-5.8, adjusted for psychiatric hospital diagnosis, parental social class). Criminality was more common among both males and females from single-parent families compared with other cohort members. The results showed that the risk of violent offending and recidivism was increased up to 8-fold if the cohort male member had been born and raised in a single-mother family over most of his childhood. Parental divorce also doubled the risk for both violent and recidivistic offending. Non-violent offences among males were associated only with parental death and divorce. Furthermore, drunk driving was more common among both males and females with single-parent background. Males who were born into single-mother families were at the highest risk of drunk driving offences in adulthood (OR=2.4, 95% CI 1.4-4.2, adjusted for maternal age, psychiatric hospital diagnosis, parental social class). In this study it was shown that young adults with single-parent families in childhood experienced a more stressful pathway from late adolescence to adulthood. However, most of the offspring of single-parent families did well during the follow-up time. Strategies to promote the well-being of children and adolescents in single-parent families are of prime importance for preventive health care.

Magister Public Health - MPH / Background: Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs) are an important cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, especially in low and middle-income countries. Traffic police reports indicate that RTAs are amongst the commonest health challenges Swaziland faces. Assessing the magnitude of the challenge, understanding the impact on public health and gaining more insight into the actual risk factors involved in RTAs, and especially RTAs that result in serious injuries and fatalities, is important for the road transport authority, the traffic police and for public health planners, in order to improve road safety, to develop effective countermeasures and to improve preparedness for effective health care, respectively. There is an insufficiency of studies on risk factors associated with RTAs, and particularly those associated with serious and fatal RTAs, in Sub-Saharan countries in general and Swaziland specifically. Manzini, a busy small city in Swaziland with a population of 61000 and an estimate of approximately 12000 vehicles on its roads daily is the setting for this study. RTAs in Manzini, are considered as a major public health problem with many people either seriously injured or killed on the roads annually. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the human (e.g. age, gender, speeding and drunk driving), vehicle (e.g. vehicle types and vehicle defects), infrastructural (e.g. type of roads, road surface defects and road lighting) and environmental risk factors (e.g. rain and darkness) associated with serious and fatal RTAs in Manzini city and surrounding suburbs in Swaziland. Methodology: A case control study, based on data collected from RTA records at Manzini Traffic Police Station, was conducted. The study population was all RTAs in Manzini, with cases being RTAs that resulted in serious or fatal injuries, while RTAs with no injuries (vehicle and property damage only) and minor injuries were categorised as controls. A sample size of 294 consisting of all 143 RTAs with fatal and serious injury that occurred from July 2013 to June 2015 in Manzini city as cases and a random sample of 151 controls from amongst the minor injury and property damage only RTAs, was selected. A standardised data extraction tool was used to collect data from routine traffic police records on all RTAs. Frequencies were calculated for categorical variables. Numerical variables were summarised mathematically, via their central tendencies and distribution as well as collapsed into meaningful categories. Bivariate analysis to ascertain odds ratios was undertaken and all risk factors that showed a significant association with severe and fatal RTAs were further assessed via multivariate logistic regression analysis. Ethical approval for the study was secured from the Swaziland National Ethics Committee and the University of the Western Cape Research and Ethics committee. Results: Factors that had an unconfounded association on multivariate analysis with serious/fatal RTAs, compared to minor RTAs, were: male drivers (AOR = 5.48; 95% CI = 1.63 – 18.43); drivers not wearing a seatbelt (AOR = 5.07; 95% CI = 2.39 – 10.74); pedestrian error (AOR = 2.66; 95% CI = 1.46 – 4.86); accidents occurring on weekends (AOR 3.62; 95% CI = 2.07- 6.33); and accidents occurring between 18:00 – 23:59 time of the day (AOR = 11.68; 95% CI = 4.49 - 30.39). Other factors such as: age of driver, no driver's license at the accident scene, drunk-driving, seasons of the year, driver error, vehicle type, vehicle defect, road surface type, road surface condition, weather condition, street light condition and urban/rural location were not found to be associated with serious/fatal RTAs in our study. Limitations Limitations of the study were that some data collected at the scene of the accident were incomplete and not collected in a standardised manner (alcohol use, speeding, vehicle defects, road defects and environmental factors) and that there was probable misclassification of some serious/fatal RTAs as minor ones and under-reporting of minor RTAs. Also several variables which may affect the severity of RTAs, such as educational level, socioeconomic status, medical illness, marital status and emotional status of the driver, were not routinely collected by the traffic police department and hence were not assessed. Conclusions and Recommendations: Modifiable risk factors that had an unconfounded positive association with serious/fatal RTAs were not using a seatbelt, night-time driving, weekend driving and pedestrian error, while male gender might be a proxy for reckless driving. Hence, education programmes for drivers and the public on behavioural change encouragement, improving pedestrians' road safety by provision of pedestrian sidewalks and crossing sites, coupled with increased traffic law enforcement at critical days and times, may result in reduction of serious/fatal RTAs.

No description available.

As part of the national effort to reduce drunk driving, servers of alcohol are being held liable for their alcohol-serving behavior with increasing frequency. In response to these drunk driving prevention efforts, the Training for Intervention' Procedures by Servers of Alcohol (TIPS) program was developed to teach servers skills thought necessary for acceptable standards of practice for serving alcoholic beverages. The current study evaluated the potential of this program to aid in decreasing alcoholimpaired driving. Subjects were 17 waiters, waitresses, and bartenders who were employed at two bars. After the baseline period, the servers completed successfully the 6-hour TIPS training course. Research assistants posing as regular patrons (i.e., 'pseudopatrons') visited two target bars throughout the course of the study. These pseudopatrons set the occasion for server intervention to occur by attempting to drink six alcoholic beverages in two hours. Naturalistic data were collected by having a partner with a hidden microphone record all interactions between the server and pseudopatron. The partner also noted any signs of intoxication exhibited by the pseudopatron. The results revealed that servers who had received TIPS training initiated more interventions than untrained personnel. Moreover, pseudopatrons served by TIPS trained personnel had significantly lower blood-alcohol levels and exhibited fewer signs of intoxication than those served by untrained servers. These results suggest that, if implemented on a large scale, the TIPS program has the potential to reduce drunk driving by helping to decrease the exit blood-alcohol levels of bar patrons. The need to investigate the maintenance of server intervention behavior is discussed and other suggestions for future research are presented. / Ph. D.

Using questionnaire survey generated data from the DWI Probation Program in Dallas County. This study investigated the factors related to the perceived effectiveness of that program from the probationers perspectives. The findings in this study indicate that the perceived effectiveness of the DWI program by the probationers is an area that calls for more research and investigations. The findings have shown that factors related to the perceived effectiveness of the program by the probationers have a profound effect on the efficiency of the program as a whole in order to achieve its stated objectives.