How Prevalent Is Drinking and Driving Among Kids in CA? Local Data Provide Clues

Kidsdata.org just added 27 new indicators related to alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. They all come from the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS), through a partnership with WestEd, which developed and administers CHKS for the California Department of Education.

This set of data includes 7^th-grade students’ reports of riding in a car with a driver who had been drinking, and reports by 9^th and 11^th graders of drinking and driving or riding in a car driven by a friend who had been drinking. Here are some state-level findings for 2006-08:

• More than 40% of 7^th graders said that they’d ridden in a car with a driver who had been drinking.
• Among 11^th graders, girls were slightly more likely than boys to say that they had driven after drinking, or ridden in a car driven by a friend who had been drinking.
• Students with low levels of connection to school were most likely to say they had driven after drinking or ridden with a drinking driver – 14% said they had done so 7 times or more, compared to 6% of students with high levels of connectedness. (School connectedness is a summary measure that includes being treated fairly, feeling close to people, feeling happy, feeling part of school, and feeling safe at school.)
• Asian American students were most likely to report that they had never ridden in a car with a drinking driver or driven after drinking.

Find data for your county or school district:

Reports of Drinking and Driving or Riding with a Driver Who Had Been Drinking, by Grade and Gender

By Level of Connectedness to School

By Race/Ethnicity

Tags: New Data, Statewide Expansion

Posted by Sarah Marxer

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