Operation Safe Crossing is a project breaking new ground by forging relationships between science and community action elements to reduce drunk driving. Every weekend night, thousands of young San Diegans stream into Tijuana, Mexico, to patronize bars and nightclubs only to return early in the morning with BACs over the legal limit to drive. The community has mobilized a number of resources to combat this problem. An independently funded evaluation of their effort is underway. However, the traditional relationship where an evaluator impinges as little as possible to avoid “contamination” is not the model being used. Instead, data gathered at the border serves both to assess impact as well as provide inputs for project staff to gain public support for the project, educate the youthful crossers, and most significantly, build the binational consortium spearheading the effort. The project uses a media advocacy process in which local leaders are used as spokespersons to release new data at news conferences. The symbiotic relationship between media advocacy, enforcement, and science seems to be producing the desired effect. Border crossing patterns analyzed using ARIMA models indicates that the intervention accounts for about a 26% decline in the volume of late-night crossers. Further, the number of underage drinking pedestrians significantly declined on average by 7.7 per month or 51.2%.
Learning Objectives: To identify novel uses for science and community prevention that maximize the impact of scientifically derived data
Keywords: Community Involvement, Media Advocacy
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.