The development and application of a proxy measure of alcohol-related traffic crashes for rural communities

Article


Czech, Suzanne, Shakeshaft, Anthony, Sanson-Fisher, Robert and Breen, Courtney. 2011. "The development and application of a proxy measure of alcohol-related traffic crashes for rural communities." Accident Analysis and Prevention. 43 (6), pp. 2160-2165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2011.06.007
Article Title

The development and application of a proxy measure of alcohol-related traffic crashes for rural communities

ERA Journal ID13370
Article CategoryArticle
AuthorsCzech, Suzanne (Author), Shakeshaft, Anthony (Author), Sanson-Fisher, Robert (Author) and Breen, Courtney (Author)
Journal TitleAccident Analysis and Prevention
Journal Citation43 (6), pp. 2160-2165
Number of Pages6
Year2011
Place of PublicationOxford, United Kingdom
ISSN0001-4575
1879-2057
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2011.06.007
Web Address (URL)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457511001734
Abstract

Context: To date, no studies have adequately examined whether community-level, rather than individual-level,
characteristics, are associated with high rates of alcohol-related traffic crashes (ARTC).
Objective: This study aims to identify a proxy measure of ARTC most appropriate to rural communities in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, and to identify community characteristics that predict higher rates of ARTC.
Methods: ARTC (2001–2007) incident data from 20 rural communities in NSW were obtained. Cost data were applied to take account of ARTCs of different severity.
Results: The method used to define a proxy measure of ARTCs for NSW generally was found to be inadequate when applied to local communities within NSW: specifically, two time periods were found to be alcohol-related for local communities only and seven time periods were found to be non-alcohol-related for local communities only. Applying a community-specific proxy measure of ARTCs to 20 communities
identified substantial variation in ARTC cost-ratios, ranging from 1.20 to 0.15. Higher cost-ratios were
statistically significantly predicted by the proportion of residents who were male and less than 25 years.
Conclusions: Proxy measures of ARTCs represent an ideal method of utilising routinely collected data to identify specific types of ARTCs that are most relevant to a defined community, identify community-specific factors associated with higher rates of ARTCs and measure the impact of interventions tailored to those risk factors. Such measures ought to be community-specific because these results suggest national or provincial-level definitions are not necessarily directly applicable to local communities. These results show substantial variability between communities in their rates of ARTC and identify communities with higher proportions of young males as being at increased risk.

Keywordsalcohol; traffic crash; cost; proxy; fatality; injury; rural
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020441003. Rural sociology
429999. Other health sciences not elsewhere classified
520105. Psychological methodology, design and analysis
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Byline AffiliationsUniversity of New South Wales
University of Newcastle
Institution of OriginUniversity of Southern Queensland
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