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Original Articles

Impaired driving and other risky drug use and sex behaviors: a cross-sectional examination of high-risk rural women incarcerated in jail

, PhDORCID Icon, , PhDORCID Icon, , MAORCID Icon & , PhDORCID Icon
Pages 45-54 | Published online: 01 Nov 2022
 

Abstract

Background: Despite women accounting for an increasing proportion of impaired drivers and higher rates of impaired driving and road fatalities in rural areas, little is known about rural women who drive impaired and their other risky behavior.

Objective: The present study assessed the association between impaired driving history, risky substance use, and other drug- and sex-related risk behaviors in a sample of high-risk rural women incarcerated in jail.

Methods: Four hundred women from three rural jails provided information about their impaired driving, drug use, injection drug use practices, and sex risk behaviors. Groups were stratified on whether they self-reported impaired driving in the year prior to incarceration. Impaired drivers (n = 260, M = 31.90 years old) were compared to women who did not drive impaired (n = 131, M = 34.42 years old) using MANCOVA and logistic regression analyses.

Results: Impaired drivers had significantly (p < .05) higher substance use severity scores for cannabis, sedatives, and prescription opioids. Furthermore, impaired drivers were significantly (p < .05) more likely to have been the passenger of an impaired driver (78.08% vs. 53.44%), been an injection drug user (69.62% vs. 41.98%), had a casual sex partner (47.31% vs. 25.95%), and traded sex for drugs or money (31.15% vs. 15.27%) in the year prior to incarceration.

Conclusions: This study found a consistent association between past year impaired driving and a range of drug- and sex-related risk behaviors in a sample of high-risk rural women incarcerated in jail. These findings highlight an opportunity to intervene in criminal justice settings to reduce multiple health risk behaviors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This was work supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse under Grant R01DA033866 (Staton, PI). Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the position of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

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