Journal article
Alcohol-involved motor vehicle crashes and the size and duration of random breath testing checkpoints
Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research, Vol.45(4), pp.784-792
04/2021
DOI: 10.1111/acer.14583
PMCID: PMC8076098
PMID: 33616237
Abstract
Objective
Sobriety checkpoints have strong empirical and theoretical support as an intervention to reduce alcohol-involved motor vehicle crashes. The purpose of this study was to examine whether checkpoint size (the number of police officers) and checkpoint duration (the amount of time in operation) affect associations between individual checkpoints and subsequent alcohol-related crash incidence.
Method
Queensland Police Service provided latitude–longitude coordinates and date and time data for all breath tests that occurred in Brisbane, Australia, from January 2012 to June 2018. We applied hierarchical cluster analysis to the latitude–longitude coordinates for breath tests, identifying checkpoints as clusters of ≥25 breath tests conducted by ≥3 breath testing devices over a duration of 3 to 8 hours. Generalized linear autoregressive moving average (GLARMA) models related counts of alcohol-involved motor vehicle crashes to the number of checkpoints conducted per week, as well as 1 week prior and 2 weeks prior.
Results
A total of 3420 alcohol-related crashes occurred and 2069 checkpoints were conducted in Brisbane over the 6.5-year (339-week) study period. On average, checkpoints included a mean of 266.0 breath tests (SD = 216.3), 16.4 devices (SD = 13.7), and were 286.3 minutes in duration (SD = 104.2). Each 10 additional checkpoints were associated with a 12% decrease in crash incidence at a lag of 1 week (IRR = 0.88; 95%CI: 0.80, 0.97). We detected no differential associations according to checkpoint size or duration.
Conclusions
Sobriety checkpoints are associated with fewer alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes for around 1 week. Checkpoint size and duration do not appear to affect this relationship.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Alcohol-involved motor vehicle crashes and the size and duration of random breath testing checkpoints
- Creators
- Christopher N Morrison - Department of Epidemiology Mailman School of Public Health Columbia University New York NY USA, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine Monash University Melbourne Vic. USAMuhire Kwizera - Department of Biostatistics Mailman School of Public Health Columbia University New York NY USAQixuan Chen - Department of Biostatistics Mailman School of Public Health Columbia University New York NY USACheneal Puljevic - Centre for Health Services Research The University of Queensland Woolloongabba Qld USACharles C Branas - Department of Epidemiology Mailman School of Public Health Columbia University New York NY USADouglas J Wiebe - Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia PA USACorinne Peek‐Asa - Injury Prevention Research Center University of Iowa College of Public Health Iowa City IA USAKirsten M McGavin - Research and Policy Development Road Policing Command Queensland Police Service Brisbane Qld USAShellee J Franssen - Research and Policy Development Road Policing Command Queensland Police Service Brisbane Qld USAVy K Le - Research and Policy Development Road Policing Command Queensland Police Service Brisbane Qld USAMichael Keating - Research and Policy Development Road Policing Command Queensland Police Service Brisbane Qld USAFrances M Williams - Department of Epidemiology Mailman School of Public Health Columbia University New York NY USAJason Ferris - Centre for Health Services Research The University of Queensland Woolloongabba Qld USA
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research, Vol.45(4), pp.784-792
- DOI
- 10.1111/acer.14583
- PMID
- 33616237
- PMCID
- PMC8076098
- NLM abbreviation
- Alcohol Clin Exp Res
- ISSN
- 0145-6008
- eISSN
- 1530-0277
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Grant note
- DOI: 10.13039/100000027, name: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, award: R21AA025749
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 04/2021
- Academic Unit
- Occupational and Environmental Health; Epidemiology; Nursing; Public Policy Center (Archive)
- Record Identifier
- 9984215147702771
Metrics
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