Commentary on Callaghan et al. (2013): Minimum legal drinking age laws protect high school students from both crashes and alcohol abuse.
Commentary on Callaghan et al. (2013): Minimum legal drinking age laws protect high school students from both crashes and alcohol abuse.
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对卡拉汉等人的评论。
DOI：
10.1111/add.12258
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发表时间：
2013
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Voas,RobertB
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文献类型：
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作者：
Voas,RobertB
美国国家公路交通安全管理局 (NHTSA) 刚刚宣布，2010 年，全美 50 个州实施的最低法定饮酒年龄 (MLDA) 法律挽救了 552 条生命。 NHTSA 报告的自 1975 年起节省的总生命为 28 315 条生命 [1]。尽管有这一重大好处，MLDA 主要由于政策考虑而受到攻击 [2]。应对这种攻击非常困难，因为证明其有效性的最有力证据可以追溯到 20 世纪 80 年代，当时各州正在颁布 MLDA 法律。在此期间，采用时间序列分析的小组研究可以将有和没有 MLDA 法律的州配对。这些研究的结果绝大多数是积极的[3]，这也许是任何交通安全政策的最有力的证据。然而，类似的研究是不可能的，因为所有 50 个州都在 1988 年颁布了 MLDA 法律。最近，一种新的方法，即用于测试 MLDA 有效性的回归不连续性分析，已在美国 [4] 和加拿大 [5] 得到应用，该方法根据青少年达到最低法定饮酒年龄限制且不再受其限制时出现的问题行为的增加，为 MLDA 法律的有效性提供了新的重要证据。 Callaghan, Sanches & Gatley [5] 研究了加拿大 MLDA 法的影响。其意义重大，因为其重点关注交通安全之外的健康益处，而且加拿大各省的 MLDA 设定为 18 岁或 19 岁，如果废除支持 21 岁限制的现行联邦法律，美国可能达到的水平。作者利用了加拿大国家卫生系统的广泛覆盖范围，该系统为受损患者提供独立于收入和不同保险政策的住院护理服务，作者指出，这“提供了他们针对的所有问题的接近人口普查的估计”。除了交通伤害显着增加之外，他们还发现自杀、酒精中毒和酒精使用障碍的人数也显着增加，对于男性来说，
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has just announced that in 2010, 552 lives were saved by the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) laws in force in all 50 states. The total savings reported by NHTSA dating back to 1975 is 28 315 lives [1]. Despite this major benefit, the MLDA has been under attack based principally on policy considerations [2]. Responding to this attack has been difficult because the strongest evidence for their effectiveness dates back to the 1980s, when states were enacting MLDA laws. During that time panel studies employing time–series analysis could pair states with and without MLDA laws. The results of those studies was overwhelmingly positive [3], perhaps the strongest evidence for any traffic safety policy. However, similar research has not been possible, as all 50 states enacted MLDA laws in 1988. Recently, a new methodology, regression discontinuity analysis for testing the effectiveness of the MLDA, has been applied both in the United States [4] and in Canada [5] that has shown new and important evidence for the effectiveness of the MLDA laws based on the increase in problem behavior which occurs when youths reach the minimum legal drinking age limit and are no longer subject to its restrictions.Of particular interest is the Callaghan, Sanches & Gatley [5] study of the effect of Canada's MLDA law. It is significant because of its focus on health benefits beyond traffic safety and because the Canadian provinces’ MLDAs are set at either age 18 or 19 years, the probable level in the United States should the current federal law supporting the age 21 limit be repealed. The authors have taken advantage of the broad coverage of Canada's national health system that provides access to impaired inpatient hospital care independent of income and varying insurance policies, which the authors note ‘provides near census estimates’ of all the problems they targeted. Besides a significant increase in traffic injuries, they found significant increases in suicides, alcohol poisonings and alcohol use disorders and, for men,