Abstract
Objectives: To examine the relationship between seatbelt non-use at the time of a crash, habitual non-use of seatbelts, and car crash injury; and to calculate the population attributable risk for car crash injury due to seatbelt non-use. Methods: A population-based case control, interview study in Auckland, New Zealand, with 571 injured or killed drivers as cases and 588 population-based controls randomly selected from the driving population. Results: Unbelted drivers had 10 times the risk of involvement in an injury crash compared to belted drivers after adjustment for multiple confounders. Habitual non-users were likely to be unbelted when involved in a crash. The population attributable risk for seatbelt non-use was 13%. Conclusions: Non-use of seatbelts is very strongly associated with increased injury crash involvement. Even where seatbelt use rates are higher than 90%, there remains a small group of habitual non-users who are at high risk; these drivers may benefit from targeted interventions.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 117-119 |
Number of pages | 3 |
Journal | Traffic Injury Prevention |
Volume | 6 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 2005 |
Keywords
- Case Control Study
- Seatbelts
- Traffic Injury
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Safety Research
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health