Assessing How Local-Level Law Enforcement Strategies, Both Specific and in the Aggregate, Influence Binge Drinking and Alcohol-Impaired Driving in Communities Across the U.S.

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Project Abstract Approximately one-third of fatal crashes involve alcohol use. We need to identify effective strategies to further reduce deaths and injuries resulting from alcohol-impaired driving. Our proposed study focuses on community-level enforcement strategies targeting the prevention of over service of alcohol and alcohol impaired driving. Over service of alcohol is very prevalent and contributes to binge drinking and alcohol- impaired driving. Effective strategies for addressing this problem have not been identified. We will assess enforcement strategies targeting over service of alcohol that community-level law enforcement agencies (i.e., city police, county sheriffs) report using but have not been previously evaluated for their effectiveness. We will assess the association between enforcement strategies, both specific and in combination, and two types of outcomes—binge drinking and impaired driving. Binge drinking directly affects alcohol-impaired driving. We will also assess the association between alcohol impaired driving enforcement strategies, specific and in combination, and these outcome measures. Although alcohol-impaired driving enforcement measures have been evaluated as individual strategies, they have not been as well evaluated when used in combination. Community-level enforcement is important to evaluate given that the majority of community-level enforcement agencies have the authority to enforce over service of alcohol and alcohol impaired driving. Use of law enforcement strategies varies in communities across the U.S. We will address the following aims: Aim 1: evaluate the associations of specific community-level over service and alcohol-impaired driving enforcement strategies with binge drinking and alcohol-impaired driving outcomes, and Aim 2: evaluate the associations of combinations of over service and alcohol-impaired driving enforcement strategies with binge drinking and alcohol-impaired driving outcomes. To address these aims, we will create and use an innovative dataset using secondary data. We will combine community-level law enforcement data from a previous study with measures of binge drinking and alcohol-impaired driving available from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), which provides county-level data through the Selected Metropolitan/Micropolitan Area Risk Trends (SMART) Project. We will also use alcohol-related crash measures for these communities available from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). Given their limited resources, law enforcement agencies want guidance on the types of enforcement strategies that are effective. This developmental study will provide guidance to law enforcement agencies about which enforcement strategies are promising for reducing alcohol- impaired driving. Results of this study will also directly inform hypotheses for future intervention and other longitudinal studies.