Changing Lanes, Changing Times ? the Risks Facing Female Drivers Today

描述(申请人提供)：尽管男性长期以来在汽车碰撞事故(MVC)中一直处于领先地位，但最近的国际研究表明，女性，特别是年轻的女司机，正在缩小差距。女性参与撞车事故的相对增加与接触车祸的增加有关，还有其他中介因素，如车辆操纵问题、对交通状况的掌握以及对风险态度的改变。这项拟议研究的目标是对全国大型数据集进行二次分析，以确定年龄/种族/民族群体越来越容易受到MVC风险的影响(在不同的驾驶条件和行为下)。基于驾驶行为层次模型的有限版本，这项拟议的研究将利用1990-2004年的死亡分析报告系统(FARS)、耐撞性数据系统(CDS)和一般估计系统(GES)提供的丰富的车祸相关信息来识别处于危险中的女性群体。在通过邮政编码标识符将基于美国人口普查的相关地理信息包括到这些文件中之后，将应用通用潜变量模型(GLVM)。最后，有了手头的信息，我们将应用分解方法在我们的概念模型中的三个层次中的每一个层次上估计撞车受伤的概率：“车辆操纵”(即，基本驾驶技能不足)、“掌握交通情况”(例如，不遵守交通规则)和“驾驶目标和背景”(例如，酒后驾驶)。这一理解将对未来研究的设计作出重要贡献，这些研究旨在认识到一些年龄、种族/族裔群体和女性司机亚群遭受MVC伤害的风险越来越大的原因。公共卫生相关声明--这项研究将评估不同年龄和种族/民族的妇女发生机动车碰撞(MVC)的风险。通过确定那些风险增加的妇女群体，这项研究将有助于设计专门针对这一风险最高的群体的有效预防政策。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although men have long held the lead in motor vehicle crashes (MVCs), recent international research indicates that women, particularly young female drivers, are closing the gap. The relative increase in females involved in crashes has been associated with an increase in crash exposure, together with other mediating factors such as problems in vehicle handling, mastering traffic situations, and changes in attitudes toward risk. The goal of this proposed study is to perform a secondary analysis of large, national datasets to identify the age/race/ethnic groups of females increasingly vulnerable to the risk of being involved in MVCs (under different driving conditions and behaviors). Based on a limited version of the Hierarchical Levels of Driving Behavior's model, this proposed study will take advantage of the rich crash-related information provided by the 1990-2004 Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), Crashworthiness Data System (CDS), and General Estimates System (GES) to identify the groups of females at risk. After including relevant geographical, US Census-based information to these files via zip code identifiers, a General Latent Variable Model (GLVM) will be applied. Finally, with the information at hand, we will apply a decomposition method to estimate the probability of crash injuries at each of the three hierarchical levels in our conceptual model: "vehicle maneuvering" (i.e., inadequate basic driving skills), "mastering traffic situations" (e.g., failure to obey a traffic law); and "goals and context of driving" (e.g., drink and drive). This understanding will be a crucial contribution to the design of future research aimed at realizing the reasons why some age and race/ethnic groups and subgroups of female drivers are at an increasing risk of MVC injuries. Public Health Relevance Statement -- This study will evaluate the risk of motor vehicle crash (MVC) for women of different age and race/ethnic groups. By identifying those groups of women at an increasing risk, this study will contribute to the design of efficient prevention policies tailored specifically to this most at-risk group.