With Friends Like These: Social Support Linked To Drinking And Driving

Having a circle of friends who condone getting behind the wheel after imbibing is high on the list of predictors for drinking and driving, according to a study from researchers at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.


Believing there are few negative consequences for drinking and driving is another strong warning sign for that risky alcohol-fueled behavior, found the survey of nearly 3,500 young adults.


Over the years, transportation safety researchers have compiled a laundry list of drinking-and-driving risk factors that include everything from hostility to adolescent smoking and drug use. But many of those behaviors or social characteristics are also predictors for drinking alone.


So when prevention experts set out to design anti-drinking-and-driving programs it can be hard to know which behaviors or traits to target for change. The new study tries to disentangle the factors that are related to drinking from those that are uniquely predictive of drinking and driving.


The study appears in the April issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.


Lead study author Raymond Bingham, Ph.D., and his team examined several risk factors. Once the influence of alcohol use was factored out, two influences emerged as most closely linked to drinking and driving: social support and perceived risk.


Drivers who had greater than average social support for drinking and driving were more likely to be drinker/drivers.


"To policy makers I'd say, it's probably going to be worthwhile to try to change a person's network of friends, help them find friends who don't drink and drive, and avoid those who do," said Bingham, an associate professor at the University of Michigan. "It's probably harder than some interventions, but worth it."


Groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving have worked for decades to make drinking and driving less socially acceptable, but a pervasive cultural change may take even longer. Other advocacy groups are using social marketing to redefine what is "normal" or "typical" behavior. One successful campaign used billboards that read "Most Montana Young Adults (4 out of 5) Don't Drink and Drive."


The ACER study also found that drivers who believe there is little chance that they will experience the penalties of drinking and driving such as arrest or license suspension are more likely to be drinker/drivers.


Transportation safety researcher Kenneth Beck, Ph.D., who was not involved in the current study, said sobriety checkpoints coupled with aggressive publicity can reduce the level of drunken driving in a community.


Stepped-up law enforcement seems to change both behavior and beliefs. "It elevates the general perception that this is a riskier activity than it once was," said Beck, a professor of public and community health at the University of Maryland.


Beyond a description of the risk factors closely associated with drinking and driving, Bingham's team also conducted a novel analysis by calculating how much factors such as social support and the perception of penalties contribute to the overall risk of drinking and driving.


"If we reduce both of those risk factors by 50 percent, then we can expect the drinking/driving rate for women to go down by as much as 56 percent," Bingham said. The drinking/driving rate could fall as much as 33 percent for men, he said.


Bingham is the first to apply this kind of calculation, known as attributable risk analysis, to drinking and driving, so it is too soon to know how strongly other factors might contribute. But Bingham says his research is a starting point for finding more targeted strategies to curb drinking and driving.


Health Behavior News Service

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