Background: Motor vehicle-related injury is the leading cause of death in the United States for people aged 1 to 34 years. In 2002, 17,419 (41%) of 42,815 traffic deaths were alcohol related.
Objective: To estimate trends in alcohol-impaired driving among U.S. adults from 1993 through 2002.
Design, setting, and participants: The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a random-digit telephone survey of adults aged >/=18 years in all states (and the District of Columbia).
Main outcome measures: The percentage of respondents who reported alcohol-impaired driving (AID) in the past month, total estimated annual number of AID episodes, and annual rate per 1000 adult population.
Results: The estimated annual number of episodes of AID in the United States declined from 123 million in 1993 to 116 million in 1997, but then increased to 159 million in both 1999 and 2002. In varying magnitudes, this increase was observed among most subgroups of the population. In each study year, over 80% of total AID episodes were reported by people who also reported binge drinking (more than five drinks on a single occasion).
Conclusions: After a general decline in the United States in the mid-1990s, self-reported AID increased substantially by the turn of the century. AID is strongly associated with binge drinking. Effective interventions to prevent AID and binge drinking should be widely adopted.