PHS 2018-02 Omnibus Solicitation of the NIH, CDC, and FDA for Small Business Innovation Research Gra

Innovation Research And Training, Inc., Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

ABSTRACT Car crashes are the leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults. Impaired driving, including distracted, drugged, and drunk driving, is a common cause of car crashes and an important public health and safety issue. Drugged driving, especially, is a critical and growing problem, particularly with the availability and growing use of marijuana, and prevention materials are lacking. From the literature, and informed by the Integrated Behavioral Model, we know that attitudes, such as the perceived dangerousness and outcome expectancies of impaired driving, perceived social norms, beliefs about personal agency to find alternatives to impaired driving, and the skills to identify and implement such alternatives are potential drivers of this behavior. The current Phase I project will develop an interactive online training and online immersive skill- building 360-degree video experience focused on preventing drugged driving, to be later expanded to encompass distracted and drunk driving. We will include high school and college age drivers, our target audience, at all stages of the development process by forming a Young Driver Advisory Council that will provide feedback on components such as the content, look and feel of the training, and relatable scenarios for the 360-degree video experience. To develop the online training, we will develop content to target the key attitudes, perceived norms, personal agency beliefs, and skills from the literature shown to affect this behavior using instructional science and health behavior change principles. To develop the 360-degree video experience, designed to be a more engaging and realistic way to practice skills than classroom role-play exercises, we will write scripts of a scenario with decision points for users to practice planning alternatives to drugged driving and communication skills to implement such alternatives. An experienced production company will produce the 360-degree video and interactive user interface for young drivers to access on their computer or smartphone. This 360-degree interactive experience can be later developed into an application for a virtual reality headset, or to work with augmented reality components as such technologies become more widely used and accessible to our audience. We will test both the online training and 360-degree experience for usability, make improvements, and then test them for feasibility by measuring changes in attitudes, perceived social norms, personal agency, and skills pre- and post-training and the 360-degree experience. This project will produce a tested theory-driven, web-based drugged driving prevention program, and assess the feasibility of using an innovative new technology, a 360-degree interactive experience, to teach skills such as planning and communication to prevent drugged driving.