Motor Vehicle Injury Alcohol-Impaired Driving: Mass Media Campaigns
Findings and Recommendations
The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends mass media campaigns to reduce alcohol-impaired driving based on strong evidence of their effectiveness under certain conditions. These conditions include that the mass media campaigns are carefully planned and well executed; attain adequate audience exposure; and are implemented in settings that have other ongoing alcohol-impaired driving prevention activities.
The full CPSTF Finding and Rationale Statement and supporting documents for Motor Vehicle Injury Alcohol-Impaired Driving: Mass Media Campaigns are available in The Community Guide Collection on CDC Stacks.
Intervention
Mass media campaigns intended to reduce alcohol-impaired driving are designed to persuade individuals either to avoid drinking and driving or to prevent others from doing so. Common campaign themes include fear of arrest; fear of injury to self, others, or property; and characterizing drinking drivers as irresponsible and dangerous to others.
About The Systematic Review
The CPSTF finding is based on evidence from a systematic review of 8 studies (search period through June 2000).
Study Characteristics
- Evaluated mass media campaigns had several components in common:
- A theoretical framework in communications research
- Pretested messages
- High levels of audience exposure to the message, mostly through paid advertising
- Campaigns were implemented in settings that had other prevention efforts in place, such as high-visibility enforcement of impaired driving laws.
- Campaign messages ranged from those focused on law enforcement activities and the legal consequences of drinking and driving to the social and health consequences of alcohol-impaired driving. Results did not differ according to the message appeals used.
- Included studies assessed intervention effectiveness on fatal crashes, fatal and nonfatal injury crashes combined, crashes that damage property, and drivers’ BACs.
Summary of Results
Eight studies qualified for the systematic review.
- Total alcohol-related crashes: median decrease of 13% (interquartile interval: 6% to 14% decrease; 7 studies)
- Injury-producing alcohol-related crashes: median decrease of 10% (interquartile range: 6% to 14% decrease; 6 studies)
- Proportion of drivers who had consumed alcohol: net decreases of 30% and 158% (2 studies)
Summary of Economic Evidence
Cost benefit analyses were conducted for two of the campaigns evaluated in this review. One campaign was conducted in Australia, and the other was implemented in two cities in Kansas. Monetary values are presented in 1997 U.S. dollars.
- In all three sites evaluated, the estimated societal benefits substantially exceeded the costs of developing and airing the campaign messages.
- One analysis reported on the first 23 months of a campaign in Victoria, Australia.
- The cost was $403,174 per month for advertisement development, supporting media, media placement, and concept research.
- Estimated savings from medical costs, productivity losses, pain and suffering, and property damage were $8,324,532 per month, with $3,214,096 of these savings coming from averted medical costs.
- Analyses of six-month campaigns in Wichita (using paid media) and Kansas City, Kansas (using public service announcements) reported total costs of $454,060 and $322,660, respectively.
- Total savings from averted costs of insurance administration, premature funeral, legal and court, medical payments, property damage, rehabilitation, and employers’ losses were estimated at $3,431,305 for the Wichita campaign and $3,676,399 in Kansas City.
Applicability
Results should be applicable to carefully planned and pretested mass media campaigns, with ads that reach the intended audience often enough, implemented in an environment with other ongoing prevention activities (e.g., grassroots activities, enhanced law enforcement efforts), and targeted to any audience of driving age.
Evidence Gaps
Results from the Community Guide review indicate that under some conditions, well-executed mass media campaigns can contribute to a reduction in alcohol-impaired driving (AID) and alcohol-related crashes. They also suggest that such campaigns are cost saving.
The characteristics of the campaigns evaluated in this review may serve as a preliminary guide to evaluating the potential for success of a proposed mass media campaign, but several research questions will need to be addressed to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of future programs. A list of such questions is provided in the list below. Foremost among these is the question of the relative effectiveness of specific campaign themes and messages. It is unlikely that all potential messages are equally effective for changing drinking and driving behavior, and some may prove not to be effective at all or even to be counterproductive. Another important question relates to the potential impact of the changing media market, with increasing market segmentation, emerging technology to allow consumers to avoid exposure to broadcast messages, and opportunities for individually tailored message delivery via the Internet. The impact of these changes should be evaluated and future campaigns adapted to the changing media environment.
The campaigns reviewed tended to take place in areas with relatively high levels of law enforcement and other activities to prevent AID. These activities may have helped provide a context in which the audience was predisposed to react positively to the campaign messages. It is not clear whether these campaigns might have had similar effects in a setting where strong AID-prevention activities were not in place.
Implementation Considerations and Resources
- Mass media campaigns may raise awareness of the dangers that drinking and driving pose for a community, thereby helping to generate an interest in strengthening legislation.
- Those thinking about implementing a mass media campaign to reduce alcohol-related crashes are cautioned to do so only if the necessary resources and supports are in place. Campaigns implemented without adequate planning, pretesting of messages, ad placement, and support activities cannot be expected to reduce alcohol-related crashes.
- Key factors in the design of mass media campaigns are related to both the content and the delivery of the messages used.
- Content: Several themes are commonly used to motivate people, such as fear of arrest; fear of harming oneself, others, or property; a positive social norm in which drinking and driving don’t mix; and portraying people who drink and drive as irresponsible and dangerous. Content varies with regard to suggested actions, including abstaining from or drinking in moderation when driving, using a designated driver, or taking the keys from someone who has had too much to drink.
- Delivery: Optimal delivery of messages to the intended audience requires both control over when and where ads appear and control over the quality of the ads themselves. To maximize exposure of target audiences to the message of the campaign, placement of ads is vital, and purchasing advertising space or time ensures control over placement. Messages should be tested before the campaign is launched (pretested) to see which themes or concepts are most appropriate for target audiences.
Crosswalks
Healthy People 2030 includes the following objectives related to this CPSTF recommendation.