Alcohol-related MVTC Deaths by Year, New Mexico and U.S., 1990 to 2019

Why Is This Important?

Alcohol-related motor vehicle traffic crash (AR-MVTC) death has historically been the leading cause of alcohol-related injury death. Nonetheless, AR-MVTC deaths provide a hopeful example of a substance-related health outcome that has been successfully reduced by using a public health approach, both nationally and in New Mexico. From 1982 through 2010, in response to a wide range of policy and preventive interventions, New Mexico's alcohol-impaired motor vehicle traffic crash (AI-MVTC) fatality rate declined more dramatically than the US rate, decreasing 83% and dropping New Mexico from first to tenth among states in AI-MVTC fatalities per 100,000 population. In terms of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT), New Mexico's AI-MVTC fatality rate in 2015 (0.38) was one-sixth what it was in 1982 (2.4). Furthermore, a comprehensive AR-MVTC prevention campaign in place from 2005-2009 was successful in reinitiating rate decreases that had been stalled since the late 1990s. From 2004 to 2012 New Mexico's AI-MVTC fatality rate per 100 million VMT dropped 42%. Rates increased slightly in 2014 and dropped back in 2015. (2016 data not available at the NHTSA website yet.)

Definition

Alcohol-related motor vehicle traffic crash deaths estimated based on CDC ARDI alcohol-attributable fractions (BAC>=0.10)

Data Notes

Data Sources

• New Mexico Death Data: Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics (BVRHS), Epidemiology and Response Division, New Mexico Department of Health.
  (https://www.nmhealth.org/about/erd/bvrhs/vrp/)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics.
  (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/)
• New Mexico Population Estimates: University of New Mexico, Geospatial and Population Studies (GPS) Program.
  (http://gps.unm.edu/)

How the Measure is Calculated

Data Issues

• Death Certificate Data

  Death certificate information is submitted electronically by funeral directors, who obtain demographic information from an informant, a close family member of the decedent. The NMDOH Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics (BVRHS) does annual trainings for funeral directors and local registrars and the death certificate information goes through extensive scrutiny for completeness and consistency. The cause of death is certified by the decedent's physician or the physician that attended the death. Accidental and suspicious deaths are certified by the Office of the Medical Investigator. When death certificates are received the cause of death literals are keyed into software locally by the BVRHS, then shipped to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) where they are machine coded into ICD-10 cause-of-death codes. NCHS returns the ICD-10 codes to BVRHS where the death records are updated.

• New Mexico Population Estimates

  New Mexico population estimates for 2025 were added to the query on August 30 2026. On January 16, 2025, the NM-IBIS POPULATION ESTIMATES FOR YEARS **2010 THROUGH 2023** WERE REPLACED. Data from the 2020 decennial census were used to update the estimates. Rates calculated using the NM-IBIS web-based queries are affected. Any rates that use population denominators that were calculated after January 16, 2025 will be different from those calculated prior to that date. We apologize for the inconvenience..

Health Topic Pages Related to: Alcohol - Alcohol-related Motor Vehicle Traffic Crash (MVTC) Death

• Alcohol Use
• Injury Prevention
• Injury and Violence
• Substance Use