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Kypros Kypri, PhD, Robert B. Voas, PhD, John D. Langley, PhD, Shaun C.R. Stephenson, BSc[Hons], Dorothy J. Begg, PhD, A. Scott Tippetts, MS and Gabrielle S. Davie, MBios

Kypros Kypri is with the School of Medical Practice and Population Health, University of Newcastle, Australia. Kypros Kypri, John D. Langley, Shaun C. R. Stephenson, Dorothy J. Begg, and Gabrielle S. Davie are with the Injury Prevention Research Unit, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Robert B. Voas and A. Scott Tippetts are with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Calverton, Md.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Kypros Kypri, PhD, University of Newcastle, 2 Edison St, Adamstown Heights, NSW 2289 Australia (e-mail: kypri{at}tpg.com.au).

Objectives. In 1999, New Zealand lowered the minimum purchasing age for alcohol from 20 to 18 years. We tested the hypothesis that this increased traffic crash injuries among 15- to 19-year-olds.

Methods. Poisson regression was used to compute incidence rate ratios for the after to before incidence of alcohol-involved crashes and hospitalized injuries among 18- to 19-year-olds and 15- to 17-year-olds (20- to 24-year-olds were the reference).

Results. Among young men, the ratio of the alcohol-involved crash rate after the law change to the period before was 12% larger (95% confidence interval [CI]=1.00, 1.25) for 18- to 19-year-olds and 14% larger (95% CI=1.01, 1.30) for 15- to 17-year-olds, relative to 20- to 24-year-olds. Among young women, the equivalent ratios were 51% larger (95% CI=1.17, 1.94) for 18- to 19-year-olds and 24% larger (95% CI=0.96, 1.59) for 15- to 17-year-olds. A similar pattern was observed for hospitalized injuries.

Conclusions. Significantly more alcohol-involved crashes occurred among 15-to 19-year-olds than would have occurred had the purchase age not been reduced to 18 years. The effect size for 18- to 19-year-olds is remarkable given the legal exceptions to the pre-1999 law and its poor enforcement.

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