Who’s not driving among U.S. high school seniors: A closer look at race/ethnicity, socioeconomic factors, and driving status

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Traffic Inj Prev
• Personal Author:
  Shults, Ruth A. ; Banerjee, Tanima ; Perry, Timothy
• Description:
  Objectives
  
  We examined associations among race/ethnicity, socioeconomic factors, and driving status in a nationally representative sample of >26,000 U.S. high school seniors.
  
  Methods
  
  Weighted data from the 2012 and 2013 Monitoring the Future surveys were combined and analyzed. We imputed missing values using fully conditional specification multiple imputation methods. Multivariate logistic regression modeling was conducted to explore associations among race/ethnicity, socioeconomic factors, and driving status, while accounting for selected student behaviors and location. Lastly, odds ratios were converted to prevalence ratios.
  
  Results
  
  23% of high school seniors did not drive during an average week; 14% of white students were nondrivers compared to 40% of black students. Multivariate analysis revealed that minority students were 1.8 to 2.5 times more likely to be nondrivers than their white counterparts, and students who had no earned income were 2.8 times more likely to be nondrivers than those earning an average of ≥$36 a week. Driving status also varied considerably by student academic performance, number of parents in the household, parental education, census region, and urbanicity.
  
  Conclusions
  
  Our findings suggest that resources—both financial and time—influence when or whether a teen will learn to drive. Many young people from minority or lower socioeconomic families who learn to drive may be doing so after their 18th birthday and therefore would not take advantage of the safety benefits provided by graduated driver licensing. Innovative approaches may be needed to improve safety for these young novice drivers.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Adolescent Automobile Driving Black Or African American Female Hispanic Or Latino Humans Male Socioeconomic Factors Students Surveys And Questionnaires White People Young Adult

  More +
• Source:
  Traffic Inj Prev. 17(8):803-809.
• Pubmed ID:
  27064697
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC5712435
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/Intramural CDC HHS/United States
• Place as Subject:
  United States
• Volume:
  17
• Issue:
  8
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:d67058b1d547af5602013108e9c443704b7a98c215b772d818566a01074af217
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/50450/cdc_50450_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 95.40 KB ]