Health Indicator Report of Alcohol - Drinking and Driving Among Adults
Adult drinking and driving is a precursor to alcohol-related motor vehicle crash injury and death. Any drinking and driving is dangerous (i.e., associated with an elevated risk of crash and injury), but driving after binge drinking (which is defined as a level of drinking likely to lead to a 0.08 BAC) is particularly risky. Unfortunately, binge drinkers are much more likely to report driving after drinking than non-binge drinkers. For example, in 2014, only 1.1% of adults reported driving after drinking too much; but 7.0% of binge drinkers reported engaging in this risky behavior in the past 30 days, compared to only 0.1% of non-binge drinkers.
Notes
The drinking and driving question is only asked in even years. Estimates for 2011 and forward should not be compared to earlier years (please refer to Data Interpretation Issues, below).Data Sources
- Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey Data, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, together with New Mexico Department of Health, Injury and Behavioral Epidemiology Bureau.
- U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), BRFSS Prevalence and Trends Data, [https://www.cdc.gov/brfss/brfssprevalence].
Data Interpretation Issues
Data for this indicator report are from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), an ongoing survey of adults regarding their health-related behaviors, health conditions, and preventive services. Data are collected in all 50 states, D.C., and U.S. territories. Responses have been weighted to reflect the New Mexico adult population by age, sex, ethnicity, geographic region, marital status, education level, home ownership and type of phone ownership. The survey is conducted using scientific telephone survey methods for landline and cellular phones (with cellular since 2011). The landline phone portion of the survey excludes adults living in group quarters such as college dormitories, nursing homes, military barracks, and prisons. The cellular phone portion of the survey includes adult students living in college dormitories but excludes other group quarters. Beginning with 2011, the BRFSS updated its surveillance methods by adding in calls to cell phones and changing its weighting methods. These changes improve BRFSS' ability to take into account the increasing proportion of U.S. adults using only cellular telephones as well as to adjust survey data to improve the representativeness of the estimates generated from the survey. Results have been adjusted for the probability of selection of the respondent, and have been weighted to the adult population by age, gender, phone type, detailed race/ethnicity, renter/owner, education, marital status, and geographic area. Lastly and importantly, these changes mean that the data from years prior to 2011 are not directly comparable to data from 2011 and beyond. Please see the [https://ibis.health.state.nm.us/view/docs/Query/BRFSS/BRFSS_fact_sheet_Aug2012.pdf BRFSS Method Change Factsheet]. The "missing" and "don't know" responses are removed before calculating a percentage.Definition
Drinking and driving is defined as adults who report that they drove after having "perhaps too much to drink" at least once in past 30 daysNumerator
Number of New Mexican adults (ages 18 and over) from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) who reported driving after having "perhaps too much to drink" at least once in past 30 daysDenominator
Number of New Mexican adults (ages 18 and over) from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)Other Objectives
Substance Abuse Epidemiology Report IndicatorEvidence-based Practices
The Community Guide outlines evidence-based strategies for the prevention of excessive alcohol use and alcohol-related motor vehicle injury: https://www.thecommunityguide.org/topic/motor-vehicle-injury.Available Services
Doctors, nurses and other health professionals should screen all adult patients and counsel those who drink too much to drink less. This is called alcohol screening and brief intervention (A-SBI). A-SBI can reduce how much alcohol a person drinks on an occasion by 25%. A-SBI is recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), the Community Preventive Services Task Force (Community Guide), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the World Health Organization (WHO). For more information on A-SBI, please the CDC vital signs website: www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/alcohol-screening-counseling/index.html
Page Content Updated On 10/03/2017,
Published on 05/30/2018
