$288,000 CDC Funds; Meharry Project to Increase Teen Seat Belt Use in Jackson, Mississippi

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--The Meharry Medical College Department of Family and Community Medicine in Nashville will receive $288,352 in the first year of a five-year cooperative agreement awarded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to evaluate the impact of school-based service-learning interventions on seat belt use among students in Jackson, Mississippi public high schools.

Meharry researchers also will examine the effects of community-based interventions, including a community-wide media campaign promoting teen motorists’ awareness of the problem and seat belt use. The Meharry team will compare its findings with other research that has demonstrated changes in teen seat belt use rates.

This evaluation project is the first teen driver program of its kind to receive funding from the CDC. The project will be conducted in partnership with Dr. Dawn McLin, assistant professor, Jackson State University, and will build on previous research and related activities conducted by the Meharry-State Farm Alliance, based in Nashville.

Seat belts are the single most effective means of reducing deaths and serious injuries in crashes, and teens have the lowest seat belt use rates and highest crash risk of any age group. “Very little is known about effective ways to increase seat belt use among teens,” said Dr. Paul Juarez, professor/vice-chair, Department of Family and Community Medicine, at Meharry. “This funding will give us the opportunity to identify effective programs that help reduce these risks. We believe this will be a valuable resource for communities around the country that are facing the same challenge.”

Motor vehicle crashes account for nearly 40 percent of all teen deaths in the United States, according to the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC). “Solving the problem of motor vehicle deaths and injuries among our youth requires a comprehensive public health response,” said CDC’s NCIPC Director, Ileana Arias, Ph.D. “Research about effective interventions to increase seat belt use among teens will help avoid costly injuries and needless deaths.”

Meharry Medical College is the nation's largest private, independent historically black institution dedicated solely to educating health science professionals. Since its founding in 1876, it has been a leading educator of African American physicians, dentists, and biomedical scientists.

To learn more about CDC’s injury prevention efforts, visit www.cdc.gov/injury. To know more about the Meharry Medical College, visit www.mmc.edu. To learn more about the Meharry Department of Family and Community Medicine, visit familymedicine.mmc.edu. For more information about the Meharry-State Farm Alliance, visit www.meharry.org .