Finally”¦ The Truth about Seat Belt Use Among Hispanics

“While seat belts reduce by about 50 percent the risks of injuries and deaths in motor vehicle crashes, results from more than a dozen studies of seatbelt use disparities between Hispanics and non-Hispanics over the years have been strikingly inconsistent. In the December 2006 issue of Injury Prevention, a leading international peer reviewed journal for health professionals and others interested in all unintentional injuries, Meharry-State Farm Alliance researchers at Nashville’s Meharry Medical College reconciled the inconsistencies. In so doing, the authors, led by epidemiologists Nathaniel C. Briggs, M.D., opened a window of opportunity for promoting safe driving practices among the Hispanic immigrants arriving in the United States every year.

The Meharry-State Farm study of seat belt use disparities by Hispanic ethnicity is the largest investigation of its kind conducted to date. Utilizing data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, a U.S. population-based archive of information on motor vehicle crash fatalities maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NHTSA, the Alliance researchers looked in-depth at seat belt use in a study population of 60,758 non-Hispanic whites and 6,879 Hispanics killed in motor vehicle crashes from 1999-2003. Unlike previous reports the Meharry-State Farm study took Hispanic sub-groups of national origin into account by investigating seat belt use disparities separately for Mexican Americans, Central Americans-South Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans, who collectively comprise 93.5 percent of U.S. Hispanics.”

Stumble it! | |