NJ-SHO Center for Integrated Data: Driving Traffic Safety Research Further

The NJ-SHO team of scientists, project managers, and communications professionals have expertise in data integration, epidemiology, outreach, and equity.

Leaders of the New Jersey Safety and Health Outcomes (NJ-SHO) Center for Integrated Data at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia are rethinking how safety and health data are collected, integrated, analyzed, and shared in the state of New Jersey. At the Center's foundation is a data warehouse that is a comprehensive resource for researchers who have access to longitudinal information about health and safety on 24 million individuals of all ages spanning almost 20 years.

The Center's new website features an interactive people-focused data dashboard enabling users to visualize, monitor, and track important traffic safety measures across communities and over time. The dashboard captures demographic and community characteristics of people like where they live, and what their driving experiences are — going far beyond crash data.

"If we just had crash report data, we would have no idea what characteristics those who crashed share, and so, we would have no idea how those characteristics are connected to crash risk and their long-term outcomes," said Principal Investigator of the Center Allison Curry, PhD, MPH.

The Center uses rigorous data integration methods to link administrative datasets. This includes motor vehicle crash reports, driver licensing and citation records, hospital discharges, birth and death certificates, and CHOP electronic health records.

Kristi Metzger, PhD, MPH

"Our mission is to promote a safe and healthy New Jersey through innovative data linkage and data sharing to support community-based solutions that reduce injury and death," said injury epidemiologist Kristi Metzger, PhD, MPH, Director of the Center, which is a Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) Partner Program. "By linking records for the same persons across datasets, their experiences can be seen within the larger context of their lives."

Using Data to Advance Science of Traffic Safety

The NJ-SHO data warehouse gives researchers a rich set of information to draw from. CIRP researchers have published dozens of peer-reviewed papers, covering topics such as the effects of Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) policies in New Jersey, child passenger safety, driving across the lifespan, transportation equity, and vulnerable road users, like bicyclists and pedestrians.

The NJ-SHO Data Warehouse includes information from a wide variety of sources.

In 2017, Dr. Curry and her colleagues published a study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that provided the first population-level estimate of young intermediate drivers' compliance with Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL). The researchers linked New Jersey's statewide driver licensing and crash record databases from July 2010 through June 2012, looking at data from over 32,000 drivers and roughly 30,000 crashes.

The results showed that 92% of intermediate drivers' trips followed the passenger restriction of GDL, and 97% followed the nighttime restriction of GDL. However, compliance was significantly lower among teens living in low-income and urban areas, among male drivers, on weekends, and in summer.

Benjamin Yerys, PhD

Benjamin Yerys, PhD, faculty in CHOP's Center for Autism Research, has partnered with the NJ-SHO Center for Integrated Data to conduct research comparing motor vehicle crashes, traffic violations, and license suspensions between autistic and non-autistic adolescent and young adult drivers.

Study results published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry showed that autistic young drivers have lower rates of moving violations and license suspensions, as well as lower crash rates. Although autistic young drivers were half as likely to crash due to speeding, they were three times more likely to crash when making a left or U-turn, suggesting the need for tailored training in these areas.

"Collaborating with NJ-SHO Center for Integrated Data researchers has been wonderful," said Dr. Yerys, who is also Director of the PASSAGE Program, which focuses on the transition to adulthood for autistic teens and young adults, ages 14-25. "I was able to answer a question with existing NJ-SHO data that would have taken me five or more years to collect on my own. Also, if I tried to collect this data on my own, my study would have had far fewer participants than what was already available through NJ-SHO."

Transportation Safety for All

Allison Curry, PhD, MPH

Transportation equity has become a prominent issue for safety and health researchers, policymakers at both federal and state levels, and community advocates, as various populations face disproportionate risks, like higher risk of crash injuries and fatalities. By using the NJ-SHO Dashboard and its integrated data from hospital records, along with birth and death certificates, researchers and others can see how crash rates and driver behaviors differ by age, sex, race and ethnicity, as well as by residential areas.

The NJ-SHO Center for Integrated Data team is conducting applied research aimed at both identifying the root causes of disparities and inequities, as well as providing insights to guide the development of practical interventions and resources.

"By linking these data, we can start evaluating and assessing the risks of crashing among different minoritized populations," Dr. Metzger said.

Vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians and bicyclists, sustain greater risk of injury when a crash occurs. By comparing crash rates and transportation equity measures based on where these vulnerable road users live and examining trends over time, these data provide a more complete picture that can help communities reduce injuries and fatalities involving pedestrians and bicyclists on their roadways.

Using the NJ-SHO Data Warehouse , researchers including Drs. Curry and Metzger investigated trends in school-age pedestrian and bicycle crashes in the United States. Published in Injury Prevention, the study team collected data from 26 states from 2000 to 2014, and they showed that school-aged children accounted for nearly 1 in 3 crashes involving pedestrians and 1 in 2 crashes involving bicyclists.

"By using more than just crash data and incorporating additional information on pedestrians and bicyclists involved in crashes and where they live, the NJ-SHO Data Dashboard can help communities target the most vulnerable road users with effective countermeasures geared toward achieving safety for all," Dr. Metzger said.

Driving Research Beyond Traffic Safety

Although the Center's expertise lies in traffic safety, particularly in teen driver safety, the team believes these linked data are of value to researchers who have different specialties and interests. They would like to work collaboratively with other investigators to expand what can be done with these data beyond safe transport.

"We have a rich, comprehensive, integrated data warehouse," Dr. Metzger said. "We welcome discussions with potential partners and collaborators on new ways to examine these data for future research projects."

Funding from the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety enables the Center to share innovative people-focused data with researchers and communities across the state with the intention of improving health and safety for all New Jersey residents.

To learn more, metzgerk1 [at] chop.edu (email Dr. Metzger) directly or contact the Center.