Appendix B

Teen Safety Belt Use Study

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is sponsoring a study to gather information on teenaged safety belt use and programs that are designed to increase teenaged safety belt use. The Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) is conducting this study. In order to gather all of the relevant data and information possible on this study, PIRE would like each State Highway Safety Office to respond to the following questions:

1. Do you have any data, research, or reports that show the percentage of teens who use safety belts? This could include information from telephone or other self-report surveys, data from observational surveys, data from crashes, or data from various studies.
   
   
   If so, could you briefly describe the information you have below?
   
   
   Could PIRE obtain a copy of the information?
   
   
2. Do you have any reports or other documentation describing research, programs or strategies aimed at increasing safety belt use by teens?
   
   If so, can you briefly describe the information you have?
   
   Could PIRE obtain a copy of the report or information you have?
   
   
3. Are you aware of any ongoing research, projects, or strategies that are intending to increase safety belt use by teens or have the potential to do so?
   
   If so, can you briefly describe the project?
   
   Could PIRE obtain a copy of any information on the project?

PIRE intends to conduct a thorough literature review of articles in peer-reviewed journals, the various Dialog databases, TRIS, MEDLINE, government Web sites, private/non-profit Web sources, Lexis-Nexis, and other sources recommended by NHTSA to uncover any literature on this issue. When the project is completed, a final report will be produced containing information on teen safety belt use, reasons why teens do and do not buckle up, strategies and interventions that change the behavior of teens, descriptions of programs designed to increase teen safety belt use (and their effectiveness), promising or emerging approaches, other public health interventions that have worked on teens, conclusions and recommendations.

PIRE will also produce a one- to two-page synopsis/fact sheet that concisely states the teen safety belt use problem, briefly describes what is known about the reasons teens do not buckle up, and describes effective/model programs or strategies that have good potential to increase teen safety belt use in the future.

Your help in providing information for this project is vital to the success. Please e-mail, fax, mail, or phone in your responses to these questions and any information you have on this issue to:

Jim Fell
Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE)
11710 Beltsville Dr. Suite 300
Calverton, MD 20705
301-755 2746
301-755 2799 (fax)
fell@pire.org

Thank you very much.