142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

305610
A randomized controlled trial of a program to reduce adolescent road-related medically-treated injuries

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Monday, November 17, 2014 : 3:00 PM - 3:15 PM

Lisa Buckley, PhD , University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Mary Sheehan, PhD , Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety-Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Rebekah Chapman, PhD , Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety-Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Bianca Reveruzzi , Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety-Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Kelly Dingli , Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety-Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Background: Injury is the leading cause of adolescent death and injury around the road is a common source of adolescent injuries. Skills for Preventing Injury in Youth (SPIY) is a comprehensive program developed in Australia for early adolescents (term-long curriculum, including looking out for friends, first-aid training coupled with teacher school-connectedness professional development). Jessors’ Protection-Risk Framework guided the program approach focusing on building protective relationships.

Method: A randomized controlled trial with 35 schools was undertaken. Students completed surveys at baseline, six-months post-intervention and twelve-months post intervention. There were 1686 students (56% female) who completed the twelve-month survey, including the Extended-Adolescent Injury Checklist whereby students self-report on medically-treated injuries over the previous three-months (only road-related items are reported in this study; cycling, motorcycle riding, pedestrian, and riding as a passenger). Randomly selected SPIY classes also participated in focus groups and reported on perceptions of SPIY and injury risk behavior.

Results: As a check of randomization baseline differences of the variables were examined, with no significant differences between intervention and control groups. At the 12-month follow-up, there were fewer medically-treated injuries among the intervention students compared with the control group, particularly associated with being a passenger. The process evaluation revealed students perceived change in injury risk and risk behaviors.

Conclusions: While data analyses are continuing, the results indicate that the program seeking to encourage adolescents to look out for their friends, build connections to school and provide first aid skills training goes some way to reducing self-reported medically-treated injuries around the road.

Learning Areas:

Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Evaluate differences in road-related medically-treated injuries between students who undertook an injury prevention program compared with those who did not.

Keyword(s): Adolescents, Evaluation

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been principal investigator (PI) on multiple grants focusing on intervention design and evaluation, including PI on the research presented. Among my scientific interests are the development of strategies to reduce injury among adolescents and to examine and develop strategies that build protective supports for adolescents (particularly among the peer group).
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.