Dr. Romano is a Senior Research Scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE). Over the last decade, Dr. Romano has conducted research and published in the field of traffic safety. He has led over 13 projects as a Principal Investigator (PI) and assisted as an Advisor and Senior Statistician on over 35 projects including the 2007 and 2013-2014 National Roadside Surveys, the 2011-2012 Drug Crash Risk Study, and the Washington State Roadside Survey—all of which involved the field testing of oral fluid screening devices among impaired drivers.
An economist by training, Dr. Romano’s research interests have focused on risk-related behaviors as well as on the analyses of risk-reducing and risk-managing policies. Before joining PIRE, Dr. Romano’s research focused on environmental risk, in particular the management of risk posed by the involuntary introduction of exotic pests into the country. After joining PIRE, Dr. Romano collaborated in the elaboration of models to estimate the incidence and cost of intentional and unintentional injuries. He also collaborated in the development of a simulation program (“SymSmoke PIRE”) modeling the impact of a variety of risk-reducing policies on smoking-related diseases.
As a PI, Dr. Romano has been funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to analyze state-based traffic citation data to study the prevalence of seat belt non-use and impaired driving among recent immigrants and by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIH/NIAAA) to investigate the role of race/ethnicity on alcohol-related fatal crashes. Dr. Romano has served as the PI or co-PI on several studies examining minority driving risks and participated in several efforts to curb impaired driving.
Also funded by NIAAA, Dr. Romano has published on the impact of the graduated driving licensing laws on reducing crashes among teenagers, as well as on the effectiveness of child endangerment laws to promote safety among children riding with drinking adults. Funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), he also has investigated the changing role of female drivers in the U.S. Dr. Romano was funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to develop a simulation model to investigate and predict the impact of traffic-related laws and policies on underage drinking and driving (SimDWI).
The limited reduction in child passenger fatalities by adult drinking drivers inspired Dr. Romano to examine U.S. child endangerment policies and assess their effectiveness. In a series of publications, Dr. Romano and colleagues examined whether driving-under-the-influence child endangerment (DUI-CE) laws impact the prevalence of fatally injured child passengers in motor vehicle crashes with an alcohol-impaired adult driver. Recently, Dr. Romano has been funded by NIAAA to establish a collaboration with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to keep moving the project forward.
Dr. Romano was the PI of a longitudinal study in northern New York State following DWI convicted offenders on and off an alcohol ignition interlock device. The overall aim of this project was to learn about DWI offenders’ behaviors and design interventions that would reduce DWI recidivism on and off the interlock. He is also the PI of a longitudinal study following recent (within a year of arrival) Latino immigrants to Miami-Dade County (FL) to learn about mechanisms that would induce them to avoid paths toward impaired driving and/or riding with an impaired driving.
Dr. Romano was a member of PIRE’s Board of Directors from 2013 to 2016.
Selected Projects
Delaying Licensure: Latino Teens Riding with Impaired Drivers and Impaired Driving
Drunk Driving with Children: Putting the Brakes on a Disturbing Trend
Managing Heavy Drinking to Avoid Impaired Driving: A Study of Interlock Users
Selected Publications
Scherer, M., Nochajski, T. H., Romano, E., Romosz, A., Evans, K., Taylor, E., & Voas, R. (2022). Examining the role of trauma in alcohol interlock performance: A structural pathway analysis. Traffic Injury Prevention, 23(4), 153-158. https://doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2022.2046270
Romano, E., Lee, I., Babino, R., Taylor, E., & Sanchez, M. (2021). Recent Latinx immigrants to Miami-Dade County, Florida: Characterization of pre- and post-immigration travel. Travel Behaviour and Society, 24, 270-278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tbs.2021.04.009
Romosz, A. M., Scherer, M., Voas, R. B., Romano, E., Nochajski, T. H., Taylor, E. P., Brogdale, M. R., & Manning, A. R. (2021). Understanding non-installers of the ignition interlock device: A qualitative analysis. Drug and Alcohol Review, 40, 1083-1091. https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.13275
Romano, E., Fell, J., Li, K., Simons-Morton, B. G., & Vaca, F. E. (2021). Alcohol- and speeding-related fatal crashes among novice drivers age 18-20 not fully licensed at the time of the crash. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 218, 108417. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2020.108417
Manning, A. R., Romano, E., Diebold, J., Nochajski, T. H., Taylor, E., Voas, R. B., & Scherer, M. (2021). Convicted drinking and driving offenders: Comparing alcohol use before and after the pandemic outbreak. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 45(6), 1225-1236. https://doi.org/10.1111/acer.14613
Voas, R. B., Tippetts, A. S., Romano, E., Nochajski, T. H., Manning, A. R., Taylor, E., & Scherer, M. (2021). Changes in alcohol use and drinking and driving outcomes from before arrest for driving under the influence to after interlock removal. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, 45(4), 743-751. PMC8076067. https://doi.org/10.1111/acer.14558
Scherer, M., Marques, P., Manning, A. R., Nochajski, T. H., Romano, E., Taylor, E., Voas, R., & King, S. (2020). Potential for cannabis adaptation among participants in a drunk driving intervention. Journal of Substance Use, 25(6), 605-609. https://doi.org/10.1080/14659891.2020.1749950
Romano, E., Moore, C., Kelley-Baker, T., & Torres-Saavedra, P. A. (2019). The utility of delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) measures obtained from oral fluid samples in traffic safety. Traffic Injury Prevention, 20(7), 667-672. https://doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2019.1635690
Romano, E., Kelley-Baker, T., Hoff, S., Eichelberger, A. H., & Ramirez, A. (2019). Use of alcohol and cannabis among adults driving children in Washington State. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 80(2), 196-200. https://doi.org/10.15288/jsad.2019.80.196
Romano, E., Voas, R. B., & Camp, B. (2017). Cannabis and crash responsibility while driving below the alcohol per se legal limit. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 108, 37-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2017.08.003
Romano, E., de la Rosa, M., Sánchez, M., Babino, R., & Taylor, E. (2016). Drinking and driving among undocumented Latino immigrants in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 18(4), 935-939. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-015-0305-y
Kelley-Baker, T., & Romano, E. (2016). An examination of the effectiveness of child endangerment laws in preventing child fatalities in alcohol-involved motor vehicle crashes. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 77(5), 828-833. https://doi.org/10.15288/jsad.2016.77.828
