Citation

Mann RE, Zalcman RF, Asbridge M, Suurvali H, Giesbrecht N. Drug Alcohol Rev. 2006; 25(4): 321-325.

Affiliation

Social, Prevention and Health Policy Research, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, TorontoDepartment of Public Health Sciences, University of TorontoDepartment of Community Health and Epidemiology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1080/09595230600741099

PMID

16854657

Abstract

Drinking-driving is a leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in Canada. The purpose of this paper was to examine factors that influenced drinking driver deaths in Ontario. We examined the impact of per capita consumption of total alcohol, and of beer, wine and spirits separately, on drinking-driving deaths in Ontario from 1962 to 1996, as well as the impact of the introduction of Canada's per se law and the founding of People to Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere - Mothers Against Drunk Driving (PRIDE - MADD) Canada. We utilised time-series analyses with autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) modelling. As total alcohol consumption increased, drinking driving fatalities increased. The introduction of Canada's per se law, and of PRIDE-MADD Canada, acted to reduce drinking driving death rates. Among the specific beverage types, only consumption of beer had a significant impact on drinking driver deaths. Several factors were identified that acted to increase and decrease drinking driver death rates. Of particular interest was the observation of the impact of beer consumption on these death rates. In North America, beer is taxed at a lower rate than other alcoholic beverages. The role of taxation policies as determinants of drinking-driving deaths is discussed.

Language: en