The salience of highway work zone safety and cell phone use among US young adults: Formative evaluation for future campaign development

Cell phone use while driving is one of the most common distracted driving behaviors among young adults, leading to fatal crashes. However, limited research has explored this topic particularly in the context of highway work zone safety among college-aged adults in the US to understand their predispositions to this topic. Utilizing McGuire’s communication/persuasion model as a formative guide, this study sought to uncover 1) what young adults think about the topic of highway work zone safety, 2) where they want to receive highway work zone safety messages, and 3) whether tailored messaging can shift attitudes and intentions. An online survey of young adults in the U.S. between 18 and 24 years old (N = 1422) was utilized. Also, 1386 written responses about why they did [n = 868] (or did not; n = 518) consider highway work zone safety an important topic were analysed. A large majority (87.1%) of participants already perceived a high level of risk and a high level of efficacy to not drive while using a cell phone. Despite this, the majority (62.4%) thought highway work zone safety was still an important topic for future messaging because messages would help to save lives, protect public safety, and promote safe driving behaviours in highway work zones. Many young adults preferred seeing safety messages on road signposts close to highway work zones and on social media platforms. Messages tailored to participants’ unique risk and efficacy perceptions were no more successful at shifting attitudes and intentions on this topic than non-tailored messages.