Milken Institute School of Public Health Poster Presentations (Marvin Center & Video)
Poster Number
112
Document Type
Poster
Status
Graduate Student - Masters
Abstract Category
Prevention and Community Health
Keywords
road safety, social norms, behavior change, Serbia, gender
Publication Date
Spring 2018
Abstract
Objectives: Road traffic crashes continue to be the leading cause of death among adolescents. While males are more vulnerable to crashes than females, driver education interventions are less likely to succeed among males than females. Some studies suggest that stronger optimistic bias and overconfidence bias in males may be the reason for this.
Methods: In a quasi-experiment conducted in Serbia, forty schools were stratified by size and randomly assigned to watch a road traffic safety presentation utilizing personal narratives or to a control arm. Surveys were administered before the intervention (N=1,449) and again six months later (N=1,072). Data was analyzed by gender in order to investigate gender differences.
Results: Risk perceptions improved for both males and females, and injunctive norms improved for females (t= 1.87, p < .05 for males and t= 2.0, p < .01 for females). Improvements in overconfidence bias and descriptive norms were predictive of improvements in high-risk driving behaviors (β= .21, p < .001 for males and β= .25, p < .001 for females; β= -.15, p < .001 for males and β= -.11, p < .01 for females, respectively). A significant interaction between improvements in injunctive norms and the intervention revealed that males whose injunctive norms improved were significantly more likely to be affected by the intervention, compared to the other groups (β= .13, p < .05).
Conclusions: Interventions targeting road traffic safety behaviors in adolescents should utilize a gendered approach. For males in particular, influencing perceptions of injunctive norms is important for intervention efficacy.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Open Access
1
Included in
Improving Adolescents’ Driving Behaviors through a Personal Narrative-Based Psychosocial Intervention in Serbia
Objectives: Road traffic crashes continue to be the leading cause of death among adolescents. While males are more vulnerable to crashes than females, driver education interventions are less likely to succeed among males than females. Some studies suggest that stronger optimistic bias and overconfidence bias in males may be the reason for this.
Methods: In a quasi-experiment conducted in Serbia, forty schools were stratified by size and randomly assigned to watch a road traffic safety presentation utilizing personal narratives or to a control arm. Surveys were administered before the intervention (N=1,449) and again six months later (N=1,072). Data was analyzed by gender in order to investigate gender differences.
Results: Risk perceptions improved for both males and females, and injunctive norms improved for females (t= 1.87, p < .05 for males and t= 2.0, p < .01 for females). Improvements in overconfidence bias and descriptive norms were predictive of improvements in high-risk driving behaviors (β= .21, p < .001 for males and β= .25, p < .001 for females; β= -.15, p < .001 for males and β= -.11, p < .01 for females, respectively). A significant interaction between improvements in injunctive norms and the intervention revealed that males whose injunctive norms improved were significantly more likely to be affected by the intervention, compared to the other groups (β= .13, p < .05).
Conclusions: Interventions targeting road traffic safety behaviors in adolescents should utilize a gendered approach. For males in particular, influencing perceptions of injunctive norms is important for intervention efficacy.
Comments
Presented at GW Annual Research Days 2018.