Community Participation in Developing a Measure for Safe Older Driver Behaviors

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Effective crash/injury prevention among older adults is dependent on a socially supported health promotion program with measures sensitive to track change in safe driving behaviors. The gold standard is expensive, not easily accessible and not applicable to the majority of older drivers. Most interventions thus far have shown little progress in reducing crash-related injuries. In prior work we identified that these programs and instruments were developed without the input of the main community stakeholders; in the absence of constructs addressing multiple person-vehicle- environmental factors and with measures lacking precision, a broad scope of domains, and acceptable ecological validity. We propose to develop, with partners from the older driver safety community, a self-report Safe Driving Behaviors Measure (SDBM). Collectively we will: 1) refine the theoretically derived constructs and domains, and develop functional items, required to measure safe driving behaviors among older adults; 2) determine the face and content validity of the constructs, domains, and functional items; 3) quantify the construct validity and concurrent criterion validity of the SDBM, and determine the rater reliability among three rater groups (older driver, families/caregiver, and driving evaluators); and (4) perform the foundational work necessary for a multi-site intervention trial, including refining the instrument, developing the intervention protocols and design elements, and identifying the multi-site collaborators necessary to test the reliability, validity and sensitivity of the new measure as a valid predictor of motor vehicle crashes. The innovation of this project is in using converging evidence to develop and pilot test, with community participation, a safe driving behaviors measure: one with adequate items, acceptable ecological validity, and high potential for public health applicability. Using the capacity of our (inter)national partnerships and establishing a core of researchers and collaborators to address the complex issues of a multi- center trial, we will be positioned to advance to the next step }securing R-01 funding to test the SDBM as a valid predictor of crashes for older drivers in the U.S and Canada. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE Statement Using converging evidence and community participation we will develop and pilot test a safe driving behaviors measure for older adults: one with adequate items, acceptable ecological validity for predicting crashes, and high potential for public health applicability. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]