Meharry-State Farm Alliance Hosts D.C. National Safety Summit to Address Motor Vehicle Occupant Safety Among Diverse Populations

Business Wire, June 29, 2006

NASHVILLE, Tenn. & WASHINGTON -- Results of Four-year Research Project to be announced at Safety Summit in Washington, DC; NHTSA Administrator, Chairman of the NTSB, Director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and Safety Experts to Offer Community Intervention Model

A newly-released study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in Washington reveals that some minorities, including African Americans, Latinos and American Indians, are far more likely than the general population to be killed in motor vehicle crashes -- highlighting a significant and largely overlooked public safety issue. National experts speculate that cultural differences among minorities and lack of proper seatbelt safety training may account for the disparity.

To address the public health crisis fueled by these and similar disparities among a range of diverse populations uncovered in its own pioneering research, the Meharry-State Farm Alliance, headquartered at Nashville's Meharry Medical College, will convene a National Safety Summit, July 6-7, 2006, in Washington, D.C., at the Hyatt Regency Washington Hotel on Capitol Hill.

The Meharry-State Farm Alliance, a joint venture uniting Meharry Medical College and State Farm in a drive to save lives on America's roads, was created in 2002 to address the public health crisis stemming from the lack of seatbelt use among African Americans. The Alliance has since become a nationally-esteemed advocate of injury prevention through research, education and public policy. It is the sole repository for the nation's only comprehensive database offering authoritative information on minority seat belt compliance.

The National Safety Summit will bring together citizen advocates, policymakers, and research scholars to review best practices in motor vehicle occupant safety and recommend a national policy and a model for implementing interventions to decrease health disparities among racial, ethnic, and other diverse groups due to motor vehicle crashes.

Nicole Nason, the new administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), former Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater, Mark Rosenker, Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, and Ileana Arias, Director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, are confirmed participants. They are expected to stir Summit participants to devise strategies to reduce fatalities on our nation's highways.

"We are honored to have the nation's foremost authorities on motor vehicle occupant safety and advocacy join us in creating a community model to reduce injuries and save lives," said Dr. A. Cherrie Epps, interim president of Meharry Medical College. "Even as federal statistics track what appear to be increases in compliance among the general motoring public, continuing disparities in seat belt use within the African American and Latino demographic and other diverse populations is a growing problem that should be at the top of the national safety agenda. We look forward to a productive Summit."

Clayton Adams, Vice President of Community Alliances, said, "The Alliance has enabled us to raise public awareness of the facts about the disparities in diverse populations uncovered in Alliance research. But, more importantly, we have translated this research into education and public policy initiatives that successfully persuade states to upgrade their motor vehicle occupant safety laws. The Meharry-State Farm Alliance is a critical part of State Farm's long standing commitment to making roads safer for our customers and families."

In addition to addressing motor vehicle occupant restraint issues at the Summit, the Meharry-State Farm Alliance will also present its research results revealing wide gaps in compliance among African American sub-groups; unveil a model comprehensive approach to motor vehicle occupant safety; and reveal its considerable successes at influencing enactment of primary seat belt laws and at helping to reduce motor vehicle crash fatalities among African Americans since 2000, when the Alliance convened the original Blue Ribbon Panel of federal government, public policy, and public safety officials from across the nation.

While the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that seat belt use rates have climbed to 82 percent among the general population of motorists since the Alliance began compiling data in 2002, subsequent Alliance research has found that substantial gaps in compliance persist among African Americans and other identifiable minorities. Safety Summit organizers hope the two-day conference will not only raise awareness of seatbelt usage among diverse populations, but also offer a model to increase seatbelt use, conduct intervention research and encourage more states to adopt primary safety belt legislation, which is proven to stimulate increased compliance among African Americans.

In a soon-to-be-published study in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, noted Meharry-State Farm Alliance researcher, Nathaniel C. Briggs, found that racial differences in seatbelt use vary according to the type of seatbelt law enforced by individual states. In states with secondary seatbelt laws, where motorists can be cited for a seatbelt law violation only if stopped for another offense, blacks are significantly less likely to wear seatbelts than whites. In states with primary laws, where motorists can be stopped solely for not wearing a seat belt, the disparity disappears.