GOHS strives to educate the public on highway safety and facilitate the implementation of programs that reduce crashes, injuries and fatalities on Georgia roadways.

GOHS believes that a focus on peer education to promote and bring awareness to highway safety issues will help alleviate the problem of young adult driver fatalities in Georgia.

Georgia College’s program, “Safe and Sound” will receive funding for the sixth consecutive year. The funding helps support the student peer education organization, P.A.W.S.: Peers Advocating Wellness Successfully, as well as various campus initiatives designed to help reduce high-risk alcohol use and to promote seat belt use.
Some of these initiatives include alcohol-free events for students, guest speakers, and participation in awareness campaigns such as National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week.

“We have 14 students signed up to be trained as Bacchus Network nationally certified peer educators,” Funke said. “The peer educators will speak to students in residence halls, freshman seminar classes and other venues where student-to-student communication is believed to be an effective prevention strategy.”

The leading cause of death in 2008 was unintentional injuries with 26 percent of those deaths occurring in motor vehicle accidents, according to a Center for Disease Control report on health in the United States with a focus on young adults age 18-29.

Georgia sustained 1,641 (all ages) fatalities in motor cashes in 2007 – 27 percent of the fatalities were alcohol related, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Georgia College’s effort is campus wide. Some of the most significant contributions are Counseling Services staff Chris Lamphere and Jennifer Strole; University Health Educator, Rachel Sullivan; Public Safety Officers; and staff and administrators from Student Affairs, Campus Life, and University Housing.

For more information, contact Barbara Funke at 445-1780.