Drinking and driving dips in two Chinese cities after the multi-sector involved project

Levels of drinking and driving declined significantly in two cities where the Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP) together with a multi-sector team of government agencies and business organizations conducted a four-year drinking and driving project (2006-2009).

The cooperative effort includes baseline surveys, public education campaigns, enhanced enforcement and outcome evaluation. Three Chinese cities were involved in the project: Nanning and Liuzhou in Guangxi Province (intervention cities) and Changsha in Hunan Province (control city).

The post-intervention survey shows that after the six months of combined activities of public education and enhanced enforcement, the drinking and driving rate declined significantly at the two intervention cities in Guangxi Province - from 6.8% to 0.9% in Nanning, and from 6.9% to 2.2% in Liuzhou.

The proportion of drink-drivers involved in the severe road crashes dropped from 17.6% to 14.6% in Nanning and from 34.5% to 22.6% in Liuzhou. The rate of drink-drive related severe road crashes was reduced from 25.7% to 20.5% in Nanning and from 48% to 28.8% in Liuzhou. In the control city of Changsha, where no intervention activities occurred, all the numbers were increased.

The results were announced at Xiyuan Hotel in Beijing during a January 14 reporting session hosted by GRSP, the World Health Organization, and the Health and Human Resource Development Center (HHRDC) of the Ministry of Health (MOH) - the key Chinese partner of the project. Roughly 70 people from government agencies, international organizations, business and the media attended the event.

The reporting session was chaired by Dr. Zhang Junhua, Assistant Director General of HHRDC. Mr. Zhang Li, Deputy Council of Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Health (MOH), Mr. He Yong, Director General of Transport Consultant Ltd. of Research Institute of Highway (RIOH), Ministry of Transport (MOT) and Dr. Cris Tunon, Senior Programme Management Officer of WHO gave keynote speeches.

A project introduction was given by Ann Yuan, GRSP Country Manager for China in order to give the participants a better understanding on the background, activities and outcome of the project. The presentation showed in detail of the methods, activities and outcomes during the entire process of the project, which include baseline survey, intervention and evaluation. The key messages of the importance of multi-sector collaboration and evidence based decision making were got across to the participants at the meeting.

Right after the presentation, a Q & A session was followed. The panelists were the front line people - representatives from Clarity Public Relations and the local partners from Nanning, Liuzhou and Changsha including both the traffic police and health sector. The discussion was warm and lively. Variety of questions raised by the participants related to:

• Is the current drinking and driving related law effective enough and how can it be effectively enforced?

• How is the relevant data recorded by traffic police during their routine law enforcement work?

• What is the difference of the GRSP project to the routine work of the traffic police in terms of method and outcome?

• What kinds of suggestions come out from the project that can be made to the relevant government institutions?

• How should the drinking and driving initiative become long term?

The project was supported in part by the Global Road Safety Initiative (GRSI), a member of the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration. GRSI also supported the translation of the global good practice manual on drinking and driving into Chinese.

More information please contact:

Ann Yuan

GRSP Country Manager for China

c/o International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Regional Delegation for East Asia

4-1-61, Jianguomen Wai

Diplomatic Compound

Beijing 100600, P.R. China

Tel.: 8610-6532-7162 ext. 34

Fax.: 8610-6532-7166

Mobile: 8613910924316

e-mail: ann.yuan@ifrc.org

website: GRSProadsafety.org