Determinants of Older Driver Safety From a Socioecological Perspective

Older driver safety is a complex phenomenon, extending beyond the person level to multiple system characteristics, such as epidemiologic, environment, and policy. Studying multiple factors in older driver safety requires the use of an integrated socioecological approach. In a crosssectional design, we used a public health model and the 2003 General Estimates System database to determine main risk factors and their measures of association in the presence or absence of injury among older adults involved in motor vehicle accidents. Compared to the findings of the existing literature, participants demonstrated similar person-level crash-related injury characteristics. However, the socioecological model elucidated the importance of environment-level and vehicle-level factors as significant determinants of older driver safety.