Harmful Journeys: A Consumer Vulnerability Perspective on Drinking and Driving

Sara Baskentli, Oden Groth, Sara Williamson, Courtney Azzari, Benjamin Borenstein, Charlene Dadzie, Mia Birau (), Serwaa Karikari, Alessandra Lisanti, Neda Mossaei and Forrest Watson
Additional contact information
Sara Baskentli: WWU - Western Washington University
Oden Groth: Fairleigh Dickinson University
Sara Williamson: SUNY Old Westbury (United States, Old Westbury)
Courtney Azzari: UNF - University of North Florida [Jacksonville]
Benjamin Borenstein: Villanova University (United States, Radnor) - VU
Charlene Dadzie: University of South Alabama (United States, Mobile) - USA
Mia Birau: EM - EMLyon Business School
Serwaa Karikari: JHU - Johns Hopkins University [Baltimore]
Alessandra Lisanti: USD - University of South Dakota [Vermillion]
Neda Mossaei: CAL STATE LA - California State University [Los Angeles]
Forrest Watson: Dickinson College - Dickinson College [Carlisle, PA, USA]

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Alcohol-impaired driving is a major public health and safety problem with far-reaching consequences for individuals and communities. Despite these persistent harms, identifying measures to prevent alcohol-related driving incidents remains a challenge for marketing and public policy stakeholders. In response, this work introduces the consumer impairment journey, a novel framework that conceptualizes this risky behavior as a process that unfolds over time rather than as an isolated, poor decision. Using the lenses of consumer journeys and vulnerability, the authors outline five stages—planning, consumption, impaired decision, incident, and outcomes—to understand how alcohol-impaired driving emerges as a result of accumulating individual (e.g., cognitive impairment), interpersonal (e.g., peer influence), and structural (e.g., rideshare availability) resource deficits. In doing so, they extend prior research on consumer vulnerability and introduce the notion of a harmful journey that is meant to be disrupted. Importantly, this novel framework highlights diverse stage-specific marketing and public policy interventions to mitigate consumer vulnerability to impaired driving and resulting harms, and charts avenues for future research in both marketing and public policy.

Keywords: transformative consumer research; drunk driving; consumer vulnerability; consumer journey; alcohol consumption; decision making; alcohol- impaired driving (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-06-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, In press, ⟨10.1177/07439156261459106⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05656771

DOI: 10.1177/07439156261459106

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().