 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Carol B. Cunradi, MPH, PhD1, David Ragland, PhD, MPH2, Birgit Greiner, MPH, PhD2, and June M Fisher, MD3. (1) Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Prevention Research Center, 2150 Shattuck Avenue, Suite 900, Berkeley, CA 94704, 510-486-1111, cunradi@prev.org, (2) School of Public Health, University of California, 140 Warren Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, (3) TDICT, Trauma Foundation, San Francisco General Hospital, 1001 Potrero Avenue, San Francisco, CA 9411-
The U.S. transit industry annually experiences 250-300 fatalities, over 50,000 injuries, and approximately 25,000 accidents. A comprehensive program of alcohol and drug testing of employees in most segments of the transit industry was implemented by Federal mandate in 1995. Prior to implementation, very little data existed on the role of alcohol or drugs in transit crashes that could be used to calculate the impact of large-scale testing. The purpose of this presentation is to determine the potential safety impact of post-accident and random alcohol and drug testing among employees in the transit industry. Data on 1995 post-accident and random alcohol and drug testing results were obtained from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Drug and Alcohol Testing Results 1995 Annual Report. The population attributable risk percentage (PAR%, the incidence in the population that is attributed to exposure to a specified risk factor, expressed as a percentage) was calculated to estimate the percentage and number of crashes in the transit industry than can be attributed to employees’ alcohol and drug use. The results indicate that during 1995, 0.03% of all crashes could be attributable to employee alcohol use, and 0.45% could be attributable to employee drug use. Based on the PAR%, 0.3 out of every 1000 crashes are attributable to alcohol, and 4.5 are attributable to drugs. These estimates are much lower than previous federally-sponsored analyses had indicated. The current analysis suggests that approaches to transit safety based primarily on reducing alcohol and drug use have very limited potential for reducing crashes.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Risk Assessment, Drug Test
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
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.