The Strategy Development Workshop on Educating Youth About Sleep and Drowsy Driving was convened by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s National Center on Sleep Disorders Research (NCSDR) as part of a collaborative effort with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to develop information on drowsy driving and promote educational activities. The purpose of this workshop was to identify priorities, methods, and messages for educating youths about drowsy driving. The workshop was chaired by Dr. Richard Millman, Professor of Medicine at Brown University School of Medicine, Providence, Rhode Island, and Dr. Anne McCartt, Deputy Director of the Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research in Albany, New York. The objectives of the workshop were (1) to identify strategies and recommend priorities for educating youths about the importance of sleep and the dangers of drowsy driving, and (2) to identify opportunities for partnering among organizations interested in educating youths about sleep and sleep deprivation. The workshop’s intended outcomes were to increase awareness that: youths and those around them should become more knowledgeable about the importance of adequate sleep to good health and the consequences of sleep deprivation; youths should obtain adequate sleep; drowsy driving needs to decrease among youths; and youths’ support systems must be well informed about the sleep needs of youths and the consequences of sleep deprivation, especially the dangers of drowsy driving (see appendix A). Recognizing that drowsy driving is a crosscutting issue involving the disciplines of highway safety, public health, and education, the organizers of the workshop invited individuals who represent many disciplines and areas of interest. The workshop began with presentations by experts in sleep medicine on the state of the science in the area of sleep and youth. This provided the participants a common understanding of the issues upon which to launch their discussions. Following the presentations, the workshop participants divided into four small groups to focus on the following environments: driver education programs, high school curricula and programs, middle school curricula and programs, and community-based programs. Each of the small groups considered specific questions for their environment (see appendix B). The small groups then generated ideas for integrating sleep education messages into their particular environment and considered which organizations might be needed to implement the ideas. Each small group presented its “top ideas” to the full group for further discussion and refinement of the priority activities (see appendix C). (Author/publisher)
Abstract