MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Josef Fritz, Ph.D. PostDoctoral Fellow Circadian and Sleep Epidemiology Laboratory Department of Integrative Physiology University of Colorado Boulder MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Daylight Saving Time (DST), the practice of setting clocks forward by an hour during the summer months and an hour back again during the winter months, is currently given a lot of attention, also because of world-wide discussions whether DST should be abolished, extended, or kept year-around. Since its introduction, mainly with the intention to reduce energy consumption, the spring DST transition has been associated with various adverse outcomes within the first few days after the transition, including an increased risk of myocardial infarctions, strokes, and workplace accidents. When we reviewed the evidence linking DST to traffic accident risk, however, results were not that clear-cut. We thus decided to take a closer look, based on one of the most extensive datasets so far, with 22 years of fatal traffic accident recordings across the US. We also aimed at decomposing the potential overall effect of Daylight Saving Time on traffic accident risk, given that both environmental illumination levels, and geographical factors such as position in time zone, may play a role in modulating fatal traffic accident risk associated with DST, but explicit and concurrent examination of these factors has so far been lacking. (more…)