The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #34993

Shalini A. Tendulkar, ScM, Emil J. Chiauzzi, PhD, and Erica Rosenthal, BA. Inflexxion, 320 Needham St, Suite 100, Newton, MA 02464, 617-332-1820, stendulkar@inflexxion.com

The most frequent cause of death (33%) among people aged 15-20 is motor vehicle crashes, and almost 40% of these deaths involve alcohol. This presentation will review the development of and preliminary field test data from a tailored health intervention for impaired driving in high school students. The Crash Site curriculum, funded by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, consists of a CD-ROM program, classroom and take home activities. Each of these components was developed with extensive input from teens, teachers, parents, and leading experts in the field of impaired driving prevention.

In the CD-ROM, the user experiences a virtual impaired driving crash. The user’s role in the crash (driver, passenger, pedestrian) is determined by her responses to initial tailoring questions about her impaired driving/passenger history. As the user navigates the program, she learns about the medical, criminal, emotional, financial, and legal consequences of impaired driving. The CD-ROM also includes real-life peer stories from an impaired driver, a crash victim, and the parents of a teen victim. Along the way, the user collects “clues” about her role in the crash.

We will show portions of the CD-ROM in the presentation and review preliminary data from the field trial, in which Crash Site is compared to standard alcohol and driver education videos. Students at six Massachusetts high schools are being assessed at baseline, one week post-intervention and 90 days post-intervention on their impaired driving knowledge, attitudes and behaviors, including consequences of arrest and crash measures and beliefs about different alternatives to impaired driving.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the value of personal risk factors, skill building, interactive elements on-screen and within the classroom, age-specific tailoring and parent-teenager education in developing effective prevention programs.
• Identify the five main principles of impaired driving prevention.
• Articulate how multimedia programs which offer interactive; immediate and tailored feedback can be effective in capturing the attention of teenagers in prevention programs.

Keywords: Adolescent Health, Alcohol Use

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Inflexxion™ is an interactive health communications company.
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: I am employed by Inflexxion.