David MacKinnon

To evaluate the California Child Passenger Restraint Law requiring children under four years of age to be transported in car seats, we examined monthly injury and fatality levels from January 1978 to December 1983 for children 0-3 and 4-7 years of age using Box-Jenkins time series models. A significant 8.36 per cent reduction in injuries was found for the 0-3 year old age group, but no significant reduction in injuries was found for 4-7 year olds. No significant reduction in fatalities was found for either age group. A similar analysis of injuries and fatalities in Texas, a state without a car seat law, showed no significant reductions in either injuries or fatalities. There was no change in the number of California 0-3 year olds in the years after the law was enacted.

The relationship between perceived parental drug use and offspring drug use was investigated. The subjects, 106 UCLA undergraduates, were evenly divided between psychoactive mushroom users and nonusers who completed a questionnaire regarding social and subjective aspects of drug use, including parental drug use. The data were analyzed using modern psychometric scaling techniques, including multidimensional unfolding and principal component analysis of qualitative variables (PRINQUAL). These techniques are advocated as preferable to discriminant analysis when variables, such as perceived parental use of different drugs, are highly correlated. Men's use of drugs was relatively independent of perceived parental drug use while women's use of drugs was strongly related to perceived parental usage. Guttman scaling and PRINQUAL analysis of the types of drugs indicate that the use of cocaine has changed since Kandel and Faust suggested the stage theory of adolescent drug use and that cocaine use has developed patterns similar to marijuana use.

This study examined the effects of smoking policy on 4,807 adolescents in 23 schools over a two-county area in California. Amounts and prevalence rates of adolescent smoking were measured with a self-report survey and a biochemical measure; school smoking policy was measured with two independent surveys of school staff. Policy effects were evaluated with multiple and logistic regression analyses controlling for school-level socioeconomic status and environmental support for teaching and administration. Of the 23 schools, 100 percent had a formal written and regularly enforced policy component restricting student smoking on school grounds, 94 percent restricted students leaving school grounds, 65 percent restricted smoking near school grounds, and 57 percent had a smoking prevention education plan. Schools with policies having all four versus less than four components, high versus low emphasis on prevention, and a low versus high emphasis on cessation reported lower amounts of smoking in the last week and in the last 24 hours. Punitive consequences of policy violation had no effect. Results were compared to school staff observations of adolescent smoking, and school archival records of student smoking violations in the last year. Results suggest that school smoking policy is associated with decreased amounts of smoking in adolescents.