This report summarizes the activities and results of a community-wide demonstration project supported by a cooperative agreement from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The demonstration project was designed to engage parents of pre-drivers in encouraging seat belt use among 13- to 15-year-olds. The program intervention site included the cities of Parma, Parma Heights and Seven Hills, Ohio. All three cities are part of the Parma City School District, the second largest district in Cuyahoga County, serving 13,000 students—more than 5,200 in the target age cohort. The demonstration project was evaluated by University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) under a companion contract, to test the effectiveness of the campaign in engaging parents and increasing belt use by young teens. Both the intervention site and control site began with belt usage for teens significantly below the national average, as determined by NOPUS. Following the intervention period, observed seat belt use among young teens in the demonstration community increased from a baseline of 58.0 percent in April 2010 to 83.8 percent in August 2011. Driver belt use also increased from 69.0 percent to 89.3 percent in the same time period. The significant increase in belt use, coupled with the level of engagement of the demonstration community, supports the conclusion that targeting outreach to parents as influencers can be an effective approach to getting more young teens buckled up. (Author/publisher)
Abstract