A new study from the U.S. National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism shows that traffic deaths involving alcohol are hugely underreported on death certificates.
The research was published in the March issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, according to RedOrbit. Over 450,000 Americans were killed in traffic accidents between 1999 and 2009, but death certificates often failed to list alcohol as a cause of death in cases where alcohol is involved.
The significance of this finding is that, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, injuries are the leading cause of death for Americans under 45 years of age. Ralph Hingson, of the U.S. National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and leader of the study, said it is important to have a transparent idea of the role of alcohol in these deaths, RedOrbit reported.
"We need to have a handle on what's contributing to the leading cause of death among young people," Hingson said.
While examining information from death certificates and data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis reporting System (FARS), Hingson and his team found that 70 percent of drivers killed in car accidents in the U.S. go through blood alcohol testing. The results are logged in FARS, and anyone with a blood alcohol concentration over .08 is considered to be legally drunk, Fox News reported.
The researchers also looked at processes of death certificates in different states, Fox News reported. Blood alcohol testing for deceased drivers isn't needed in some states, while a death certificate has to be issued sooner than the blood alcohol content (BAC) is processed in other cases. Despite the different rules for states, the NHTSA looks to make sure FARS includes all BAC testing results.
"The physicians on the other hand, who fill out death certificate, they'll put down whether it was a heart attack, suicide, cancer, whatever, even though alcohol was a major contributor," Hingson said.
Hingson said that the lack of reports of alcohol's role in death certificates could get worse not just for traffic deaths, but for other types of accidental deaths, such as falls, drowning and drug overdoses, which don't require mandatory blood alcohol testing or other reporting systems, RedOrbit reported. Hingson added that he believes testing should also be done in these cases.
