In order to assess the quality of the information on alcohol involvement in road crashes and to understand the factors which determine this characteristic a study was initiated by the National Injury Surveillance Unit (NISU), as a joint funded project with the Federal Office of Road Safety (FORS), to investigate the data on blood alcohol concentration (BAC) reported in road crash databases nationally. The following specific outputs were provided by the study: a) identification of the factors which could influence the extent of missing values for BAC in road crash databases at national level; b) identification of the variables most strongly associated with BAC status (known versus missing) and BAC level (¾.05 vs. >.05); c) estimation of the number and proportion of cases having BAC >.05 at national level taking into account the extent to which cases having missing values for BAC were likely to have BAC >.05; and d) provision of recommendations for reducing the level of missing values in existing databases and specification of the requirements for new databases at national level. (A)
Abstract