Background In 1999, NHTSA's ten regional offices developed new strategies and initiated program activities to encourage safety belt use by minority populations. Examples of the activities include bilingual translation of occupant protection materials, culturally relevant program materials, diversity forum, etc. NHTSA also targets high-risk populations with historically lower belt use, such as pickup-truck drivers.

Objectives/Proposed Approach Evaluate the effectiveness of safety belt initiatives in diverse communities and high-risk populations through (1) Interviews with the regional offices and reviews the literature on diverse safety belt initiatives; (2) Descriptions of the programs' goals, objectives, strategies, funding sources, resources, and organization structure, etc.; (3) Surveys of focus groups for these populations to study their awareness and opinions of the programs, attitudes towards belt use, etc.; and (4) Analyzing belt use trends for those groups that are specifically identified in FARS and/or NOPUS data (e.g., pickup-truck drivers). The evaluation may require 2-3 years, depending on the extent of data collection.