Abstract for:Alcohol-Impaired Driving in U.S. College Environments: Stakeholder-Based Causal Loop Analysis to Advance Policy Planning

Alcohol-impaired driving fatalities in the U.S. account for over 10,000 annual deaths, with rising trends over the past few years.  However, policy resistance has resulted from interventions based on siloed and over-simplified thinking, as decision-makers fail to appreciate or are overwhelmed by the underlying dynamic complexity of alcohol drinking and impaired driving in college environments.

In this work in progress session, we will describe our emerging dynamic hypothesis about key and actionable determinants of student DUI based on an integration of the scientific literature and group model building efforts with diverse stakeholders in a large campus community in the southern U.S.  We will share what is known about the array of complex determinants from existing theory and research, as well as our emerging documentation of interconnected dynamics informed by system stakeholders, in the form of a causal loop diagram.  We will also introduce and welcome feedback on our approach to simulating key dynamics, within the context of our knowledge of the underlying dynamic complexity that defines alcohol-impaired driving in college environments, what we know about preventive action, and where we believe decision-makers’ mental models are flawed.