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Buckle Up, Stay Safe

An Evidence-Based Practice

Description

Buckle Up, Stay Safe is a campaign to encourage senior drivers to wear safety belts. The incidence of automobile crashes per miles driven and related mortality rates increases for the elderly (defined as individuals over the age of 65). Safety belt use significantly reduces the extent of injuries, hospitalizations, and deaths. Prompting safety belt use with road signs is cost effective and demonstrates increases in safety belt use. This campaign uses signs with the slogan "Buckle up, Stay safe" and an image of a black cross within a white heart on a red background. The signs are placed under stop signs at the exit of senior center parking lots to encourage compliance.

Goal / Mission

The goal of this program is to increase safety belt use among senior drivers.

Results / Accomplishments

In an evaluation of the Buckle Up, Stay Safe program using a repeated baseline design, the installation of signs increased the safety belt usage by drivers exiting senior communities from baseline (68%), to post-installation of signs (94%), to 6-months following installation (80%). The program was evaluated again at a 4-year follow-up comparing six senior communities with seat belt signs to six matched control senior communities with no signs. Safety belt use was stable over the four years, and remained similar to the six-month follow-up. Significantly more drivers used safety belts at the experimental sites than the control sites with 80% of men and 81% of women using safety belts at the experimental sites, while only 53% of men and 55% of women used belts at the control sites (p = 0.006). Significantly more passengers left the experimental sites buckled than the control sites (79% vs. 59%, p = 0.03).

About this Promising Practice

Organization(s)
Buckle Up, Stay Safe
Primary Contact
Daniel Cox
University of Virginia Health Systems
Box 800-223
Charlottesville, VA 22908
(434) 924-5314
djc4f@virginia.edu
http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/home.html
Topics
Community / Public Safety
Community / Transportation
Organization(s)
Buckle Up, Stay Safe
Source
Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis
Date of publication
2005
Date of implementation
1998
Location
Virginia
For more details
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC130971...
Target Audience
Adults, Older Adults

Related Promising Practices

  1. Increasing the Use of Child Restraints in Motor Vehicles
  2. The Vehicle Injury Prevention Program (VIP)
  3. Child Booster Seat Community Campaign
  4. Tribal Motor Vehicle Injury Prevention Programs

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An Evidence-Based Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures showing improvement in the outcome(s) of interest after the implementation of the program (i.e. increase in smoking cessation, not just the delivery of a smoking cessation program). The outcome measure(s) is/are compared at relevant time periods before and after the intervention or program implementation. Alternatively, the evaluation study compares the outcome(s) between an intervention group and an appropriate control group.
  3. The study is of peer-review quality and presents numbers in a scientific manner; measurements of precision and reliability are included (e.g. confidence intervals, standard errors), results from statistical tests show a significant difference or change in the outcome measure(s), and relevant point estimates and p-values are presented. Note: if the results from an evaluation of a program are presented in a scientific manner and the outcome measure is improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant, the practice is classified as effective and not evidence-based.
MiCalhoun