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

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.