|
 Of the $200 million of compounded annual growth to the U.S. gross
domestic product (GDP) since 1984 to 1986, about 5 percent is a
result of reduction in alcohol-related car crashes, researchers
report.
Economic gains will continue to accumulate as alcohol-related car
crashes continue to become less common, said Ted Miller, a study
author from the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in
Silver Spring, Maryland.
“We know where to move to get more reductions,” he said. “We need to
hold the course and keep expanding it.”
The installation of breath-controlled ignitions or crash avoidance
systems may help reduce alcohol-relate car crashes, Miller told
Reuters Health by phone.
The researchers write in the journal Injury Prevention that previous
cost estimates of alcohol-related car crashes don’t describe the
effects to the economy. Instead, they took employers' or societal
perspectives.
The authors say analyzing those costs may not take into account
ramifications throughout the economic system.
For example, Miller said, a person in an alcohol-related car
accident may need hand surgery in a local hospital. If they weren’t
in the accident, they may instead buy a diamond ring, which would
likely benefit another country’s economy.
In that situation, the costs associated with an alcohol-related car
crash may actually benefit the U.S. economy, because the money being
spent on the surgery is staying in the U.S.
“That was something that concerned me that having a cast on your
finger rather than a ring may be good for the economy, but it turns
out it’s not,” he said.
The researchers found that about 12 percent of people involved in
U.S. car crashes in 2010 were involved in an alcohol-related crash.
Miller said that’s about half of the proportion involved in
alcohol-related crashes in 1984 to 1986.
[to top of second column] |
They found that Americans drove 25.5 billion miles in 2010 with
blood alcohol levels exceeding 0.05. Almost 14 billion of those
miles were at blood alcohol levels above the legal limit of 0.08.
Each of those miles cut U.S. economic output by $0.80, the authors
say.
Overall, alcohol-related crashes reduced the U.S. GDP by $10 billion
and cost 234,000 jobs, they found.
Healthcare was the only business sector that benefited from
alcohol-related crashes, because of the increased demand for medical
services after traffic accidents.
Miller said the economic growth is partially due to people not being
out of work and being able to spend money on other services. It’s
also due to employers not having to pay benefits for disability,
paid time off and additional workers.
“What’s happening by reducing impaired driving, we’re reducing the
fringe benefit bill that employers have to pay,” he said.
The researchers caution that their results are limited by the
modeling they used. Also, they don’t account for premiums paid for
workers to take high-risk jobs, or for the cost of prevention
efforts.
SOURCE: http://bmj.co/1zkHas8 Injury Prevention, online April 29,
2015.
(Story refiles to correct in paragraph 13, 0.80 to 0.08.)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
