Contact: David Williamson
(919) 962-2091

Overall Percentage of Alcohol-Related Motor Vehicle Deaths Declines for Children

Between 1991 and 1996, the overall percentage of alcohol-related motor vehicle deaths for children declined, according to an article in the May 3 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Lewis H. Margolis, MD, MPH, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and colleagues examined the association between alcohol use by drivers and mortality of children younger than 16 years who were passengers, pedestrians, and bicyclists, using data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System for 1991-1996.

The authors found that 3,318 deaths (19.9 percent) involved alcohol-related crashes. Of the alcohol-related deaths, 79.5 percent involved children as passengers, and the remainder involved pedestrians or bicyclists struck by drivers who had been drinking alcohol. For alcohol-related deaths of child passengers, 66.3 percent involved alcohol use by the driver of the vehicle in which the child was riding.

The authors found that the percentage of alcohol-related fatalities has declined from 21.6 percent in 1991 to 17.8 percent in 1996. Considering only crashes in which the alcohol-use status of the child's driver was relevant, the decline was less marked, from 18.8 percent in 1991 to 15.1 percent in 1995, with an increase to 16.4 percent in 1996.

They also found that drivers under the legal drinking age of 21 years who had been drinking accounted for 30.3 percent of alcohol-related passenger deaths among children.

From 1991 through 1996, approximately 550 children per year died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes. "To put this in perspective, it is estimated that annually 284 to 360 children younger than 18 years die from smoking-related illnesses and fires, and approximately 208 children younger than 15 years die as the result of unintentional firearm injuries," the authors write.

Editor's Note: This research was supported in part by the Injury Prevention Research Center of the University of North Carolina.

Media Advisory: To contact Lewis H. Margolis, MD, MPH, contact David Williamson of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, at (919) 962-2091.

(The Journal of the American Medical Association. 2000; 283:2245-2248)

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