Healthy People 2010 - With Annotations

Chapter 26

Adverse Consequences of Substance Use and Abuse

26-6. Reduce the proportion of adolescents who report that they rode, during the previous 30 days, with a driver who had been drinking alcohol.

Target: 30 percent.

Baseline: 37 percent of students in grades 9 through 12 reported riding with a driver who had been drinking alcohol in 1997.

Target setting method: Better than the best.

Data source: Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), CDC, NCCDPHP.

DNA = Data have not been analyzed. DNC = Data are not collected. DSU = Data are statistically unreliable.

Health risk behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of illness, death, and social problems among youth and adults often are established during youth, extend into adulthood, and are interrelated. In the United States, 72 percent of all deaths among school-aged youth and young adults result from four causes: motor vehicle crashes, other unintentional injuries, homicide, and suicide. Many high school students practice behaviors that may increase their likelihood of death from these four causes. Hispanic students are more likely than African American or white students to ride with a driver who has been drinking.

Rates of drinking across State surveys ranged from 19.4 percent to 52.5 percent (median: 36.0 percent). Across the local surveys, the rates ranged from 20.7 percent to 43.1 percent (median: 32.1 percent).(73) Reducing the number of adolescents who ride in a motor vehicle with another adolescent driver who has been drinking is an important step to lower motor-vehicle related deaths and injuries.

Read Overview of Injuries

Back to HP 2010 Injury Objectives Page

Last modified: 15-Mar-2000.