Reducing Alcohol-Impaired Driving: Intervention Training Programs for Servers of Alcoholic Beverages

These programs provide education and training to servers of alcoholic beverages with the goal of altering their serving practices to prevent customer intoxication and alcohol-impaired driving. Practices may include offering customers food with drinks, delaying service to rapid drinkers, refusing service to intoxicated or underage consumers, and discouraging intoxicated customers from driving.

Summary of Task Force Recommendations & Findings

The Community Preventive Services Task Force recommends server training programs, under certain conditions, based on sufficient evidence of their effectiveness in reducing alcohol-related motor vehicle crash fatalities.

Task Force Finding

Results from the Systematic Reviews

Five studies qualified for the systematic review.

• Intoxicated drinkers: decreased proportion ranging from 17% to 100% with a median equal to 33% (3 studies)
• Single-vehicle nighttime injury crashes: decrease of 23% (1 study)
• Training programs led to significant improvements in observed server behaviors following an intensive (4.5-6 hour) training (2 studies).
• Most of the evidence reviewed comes from small-scale studies where the study participants may have been unusually motivated and the researchers influenced the design and implementation of the server training.
• The findings of positive effects are limited to those programs that provided face-to-face training, and involve strong management support.
• These results may not apply to typical server intervention training programs that do not include these elements.

These results are based on a systematic review of all available studies led by scientists from CDC’s Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention with input from a team of specialists in systematic review methods and experts in research, practice and policy related to reducing alcohol-impaired driving.

Supporting Materials

• Research gaps
• Summary evidence tables [PDF - 102KB]
• Search strategy

Publications

Shults RA, Elder RW, Sleet DA, et al. Reviews of evidence regarding interventions to reduce alcohol-impaired driving. [PDF - 67KB] Am J Prev Med  2001;21(4S):66–88.

Task Force on Community Preventive Services. Recommendations to reduce injuries to motor vehicle occupants: increasing child safety seat use, increasing safety belt use, and reducing alcohol-impaired driving. [PDF - 2.30MB] Am J Prev Med 2001;21(4S):16–22.

Task Force on Community Preventive Services. Motor-vehicle occupant injury: strategies for increasing use of child safety seats, increasing use of safety belts, and reducing alcohol-impaired driving. MMWR Recommendations and Reports 2001;50(RR07):1-13.

Task Force on Community Preventive Services. Motor vehicle occupant injury. [PDF - 355KB] In : Zaza S, Briss PA, Harris KW, eds. The Guide to Community Preventive Services: What Works to Promote Health? Atlanta (GA): Oxford University Press;2005:329-84.

More Community Guide publications about the Prevention of Motor Vehicle-Related Injuries

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Sample Citation

The content of publications of the Guide to Community Preventive Services is in the public domain. Citation as to source, however, is appreciated. Sample citation:
Guide to Community Preventive Services. Reducing alcohol-impaired driving: intervention training programs for servers of alcoholic beverages www.thecommunityguide.org/mvoi/AID/inter-training. Last updated: MM/DD/YYYY.

Review completed: November 2001