Reviews of evidence regarding interventions to increase the use of safety belts

Dinh-Zarr, Tho Bella; Sleet, David A.; Shults, Ruth A.; Zaza, Stephanie; Elder, Randy W.; Nichols, James L.; Thompson, Robert S.; Sosin, Daniel M.

Affiliations

¹Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia USA

²Division of Prevention Research and Analytic Methods, Epidemiology Program Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

³Office of Research and Traffic Records, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, DC, USA

⁴Task Force on Community Preventive Services and the Department of Preventive Care, Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, Seattle, Washington, USA

⁵Office of the Director (Sosin), National Center for Injury Prevention and Control

Abstract and keywords

Background: The use of safety belts is the single most effective means of reducing fatal and nonfatal injuries in motor vehicle crashes. If all motor vehicle occupants consistently wore safety belts, an estimated 9553 deaths would have been prevented in 1999 alone.

Methods: The Guide to Community Preventive Services’s methods for systematic reviews were used to evaluate the effectiveness of three interventions to increase safety belt use. Effectiveness was assessed on the basis of changes in safety belt use and number of crash-related injuries.

Results: Strong evidence was found for the effectiveness of safety belt laws in general and for the incremental effectiveness of primary safety belt laws relative to secondary laws. Strong evidence for the effectiveness of enhanced enforcement programs for safety belt laws was also found. Additional information is provided about the applicability, other effects, and barriers to implementation of these interventions.

Conclusions: These reviews form the basis of the recommendations by the Task Force on Community Preventive Services presented elsewhere in this supplement. They can help decision makers identify and implement effective interventions that fit within an overall strategy to increase safety belt use.

Keywords: community health services; decision making; evidence-based medicine; practice guidelines; preventive health services; public health practice; meta-analysis; review literature; motor vehicles; seat belts; accidents, traffic; wounds and injuries

Links

DOI: 10.1016/S0749-3797(01)00378-6

PubMed: 11691561

WoS: 000172110800010

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Cited By (5)

Year	Entry
2004	Peden M, Scurfield R, Sleet D, Mohan D, Hyder AA, Jarawan E, Mathers C, eds. World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2004.
2011	Miller TR, Bhattacharya S, Zaloshnja E. Fruits of 20 years of highway safety legislative advocacy in the United States. In: 55th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). October 3-5, 2011; Paris, France.357-363.
2012	Chekijian SA, Truzyan N. Practices, attitudes and perceptions toward road safety in Yerevan, Republic of Armenia. In: 56th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). October 14-17, 2012; Seattle, WA.191-200.
2013	Fu J, Anderson CL, Dziura JD, Crowley MJ, Vaca FE. The impact of state level graduated driver licensing programs on rates of passenger restraint use and unlicensed driving in fatal crashes. In: 57th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). September 22-25, 2013; Quebec City, QC.89-98.
2006	Zhu S, Layde PM, Guse CE, Laud PW, Pintar F, Nirula R, Hargarten S. Obesity and risk for death due to motor vehicle crashes. Am J Public Health. April 2006;96(4):734-739.