Behavioral Health and Drunk Driving Prevention: The History and Policy Implications of the Washington Regional Alcohol Program (WRAP)

Since its establishment in 1983, the Washington Regional Alcohol Program (WRAP) has tried to decrease the costs of drunk driving and underage drinking. This article (1) analyzes how WRAP worked to prevent drunk driving using behavioral health strategies and (2) reflects on the policy implications of this approach. Historical-textual analysis of interviews and archival records; iterative review of applicable scholarship from history, sociology, and public health. This project applies historical methods to examine three sets of primary sources: four boxes of archival records from WRAP consisting of 2,500 pages of flyers, educational resources, press releases, reports, news clippings, and institutional newsletters; four hour-long interviews with WRAP cofounders Bill Bronrott, John Moulden, and Jerry Sachs and with WRAP president Kurt Erickson; and the content available on the WRAP website. These materials were reviewed and interpreted using close-reading, synthesis, and historical contextualization. Evidence was arranged thematically and chronologically for written analysis. WRAP provides resources and holds events to teach communities about responsible alcohol use; operates a subsidized rideshare service on holidays; partners with businesses to restrict access to alcoholic drinks; and advocates for strict drinking-and-driving policies. WRAP and its supporters have historically interpreted drunk driving as a problem of unsafe behavior with several points of intervention: the choice to drink or not; the choice to drink more or less alcohol on one occasion; and the choice to drive or not to drive after drinking. WRAP tries to steer the public towards safer decisions at each of these steps. The history of WRAP makes three contributions to the wider literature on drunk driving. First, most accounts of late-twentieth-century efforts to control drunk driving focus on grassroots, “victim-led” groups including Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). WRAP had a markedly different structure, forming public-private partnerships between safety experts, law enforcement, elected officials, businesses, and the media. Second, WRAP presents promising opportunities to extend the practice of health behavior from changing personal knowledge or beliefs to reconfiguring the environments where individuals make risky choices. Finally, WRAP affirms the potential context-dependent efficacy of stigma as a tool for public health.