Urban-rural comparisons of drink-driving behaviour among late teens: a preliminary investigation

Dewan

Int J Community Med Public Health

2017

INTRODUCTIONMany adolescents face physical, psychological and social challenges of various kinds. They usually start experimenting with risky health behaviours on certain occasions before intensifying and consolidating it.1 These high-risk behaviours include those which contribute to unintentional injuries, violence, alcohol and other drug use, and tobacco use, sexual behaviours related to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, Unhealthy dietary behaviours and inadequate physical activity. Such behaviours often continue in adulthood and can lead to increased morbidity and mortality.Unintentional injuries are the largest source of premature morbidity and mortality and the leading cause of death among adolescents 10-19 years of age.2 Adolescents tend to be impulsive; vulnerable to peer influences and prone to indulge in health risk behaviours of various kinds. Dissatisfaction with life and bullying by fellow friends ABSTRACT Background: Adolescence is a transition period of rapid growth and development which makes this age group more vulnerable. These vulnerabilities manifest in risk behaviours that predispose them to injuries, violence, suicidal tendencies and sexual abuse in adolescence and in later stages of life. The objective of present study was to assess the health risk behaviour of rural and urban male adolescents concerning injuries, violence and sexuality. Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted among 848 school going adolescents (15-19 years) over a period of one year (2014)(2015). Schools were randomly selected using multistage simple random sampling. The youth risk behaviour survey (YRBS) questionnaire was used for data collection. Behaviours regarding driving, carrying weapons, violence, suicidal thoughts and sexual activities were explored. Descriptive statistics was used in form of percentages and proportions. Chi square test was used as a test of significance. Results: Less than half of adolescents surveyed used helmet and seatbelt while 22%reported using mobile phone while driving. Out of total adolescents, 13.7% carried weapons to school while 23.8% damaged or stole other students' property. Adolescents in the urban area were more often threatened or injured with a weapon by someone on school premises as compared to rural counterparts. Nearly half of (47%) urban and 33% of rural ever felt so sad leading to stoppage of usual activities. Only 10.7% adolescents reported having first sexual intercourse out of which nearly one third (38.4%) had not used any method to prevent pregnancy. Conclusions: Adolescents frequently reported high risk behaviour regardless of place of residence and type of school.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Injury and violence related behaviour among school-going adolescents in Jammu region

Dewan

Int J Community Med Public Health

2017

Traffic Injury Prevention

“…For example, young rural drivers consider speeding on rural roads an acceptable, controllable risk (Knight et al 2013). However, most studies comparing risk perception between urban and rural environments have used between-subject comparisons (Dunsire and Baldwin 1999;Leadbeater et al 2008;Nordjaern et al 2010), effectively comparing rural and urban drivers, rather than environments. Within-subject comparisons of urban and rural driving environments are therefore required to provide more sensitive analysis (Streff and Geller 1988).…”

Section: Environmental Differences In Risk Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risk and safety perception on urban and rural roads: Effects of environmental features, driver age and risk sensitivity

Cox

Beanland

Filtness

2017

This study demonstrates that drivers perceive rural roads as less risky than urban roads, even when similar scenarios occur in both environments. Age did not affect hazard ratings. Instead, the findings suggest that the assessment of risk posed by hazards is influenced more by individual differences in risk sensitivity. This highlights the need for driver education to account for appraisal of hazards' risk and relevance, in addition to hazard detection, when considering factors that promote road safety.

Australian J Rural Health

“…31,32 In addition, an early study in Western Australia, using face to face interviews, found young metropolitan residents were more likely than young rural residents to drink-drive. 21 However, given the length of time since these studies were conducted and the self-report nature of the data, these studies are likely to underreport drink driving prevalence in the community.…”

Section: Drink Drivingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of rural and regional alcohol research in Australia

Miller

Coomber

Staiger

et al. 2010

There is emerging research examining alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harms within regional and rural Australia. All studies show that these populations experience disproportionate harm because of alcohol consumption. The causes and mechanism for this have not been investigated, and a program of research is required to understand how and why rural populations experience disproportionate levels of alcohol-related harm and ultimately, what interventions will be most effective in reducing alcohol-related harms.