Littenberg Benjamin, Lubetkin Derek
General Internal Medicine Research, University of Vermont.
School of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine.
Cureus. 2016 Mar 3;8(3):e518. doi: 10.7759/cureus.518.
Driver's license records in the United States typically contain age, sex, height, weight, and home address. By combining the body mass index (calculated from the reported height and weight) and address information, researchers can explore and quantify the relationships between obesity and specific environmental features surrounding the place of residence. We report here our experience obtaining those data and the current state of driver's license data as an epidemiological resource.
The specific state agency responsible for maintaining driver's license databases was contacted by email, phone, or both methods for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Fourteen states with a combined population of 89.8 million people indicated they could provide a total of 73.3 million unique driver's license (and non-driver identification) data records with address, height, weight, gender, and age, representing 82% of the population in these states. Four additional states will provide data with a zip code but not the street address. A total of 52.6 million unique analyzable records from seven states has been acquired and analyzed. Obesity is more prevalent among males and those living in less urbanized areas.
Driver's licenses represent an underused resource for studying the geographic correlates of obesity and other public health issues.
美国的驾照记录通常包含年龄、性别、身高、体重和家庭住址。通过结合体重指数（根据报告的身高和体重计算得出）和地址信息，研究人员可以探索并量化肥胖与居住地点周围特定环境特征之间的关系。我们在此报告获取这些数据的经验以及作为一种流行病学资源的驾照数据的现状。
通过电子邮件、电话或两种方式联系了负责维护驾照数据库的50个州和哥伦比亚特区的特定州机构。
14个州，总人口为8980万，表明他们总共可以提供7330万条包含地址、身高、体重、性别和年龄的独特驾照（及非驾驶身份识别）数据记录，占这些州人口的82%。另外4个州将提供邮政编码但不提供街道地址的数据。已经获取并分析了来自7个州的总共5260万条可分析的独特记录。肥胖在男性和居住在城市化程度较低地区的人群中更为普遍。
驾照是研究肥胖及其他公共卫生问题的地理关联的一种未得到充分利用的资源。
