| Title: | Can all healthy adults use the current evidential breath alcohol analysers? An investigation using a large spirometry database |
| Journal: | Medico-Legal Journal |
| Published: | 13 Jun 2023 |
| Pubmed: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37309804/ |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1177/00258172231178419 |
| URL: | https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00258172231178419 |
Publication 11560
WARNING: the interactive features of this website use CSS3, which your browser does not support. To use the full features of this website, please update your browser.
Abstract
People failing to give a specimen of breath at a police station are assumed to be deliberately obstructive and are charged with Failure to Provide under the Road Traffic Act 1988. However, spirometry records of 281,210 healthy individuals from UK BioBank showed that a significant minority cannot use existing evidential breath analysis machines. Women were three times more likely to be unable to use them than men (1.64% vs 0.54%) with the risk rising with age six-fold from those in their 40s (0.43%) to 2.7% in their 70s, with women more affected (0.65% to 3.8%). Short stature was a further risk factor: 2.6% of men and 3.8% of women below the 2nd percentile of height could not use the current machines, with almost one in ten elderly, short women unable to do so, while smokers aged 50+ were twice as likely as non-smokers of the same age to be unable to provide breath specimens.</p>
3 Authors
- Galen Ives
- Laura Sbaffi
- Peter A Bath
1 Application
| Application ID | Title |
|---|---|
| 50461 | Respiratory difficulties in people suffering from clinical anxiety |
Enabling scientific discoveries that improve human health