Child Safety

Children are particularly vulnerable to accidents and their safety requires different approaches than those for adults. Accidental injury kills 1 million children annually worldwide. Ninety-eight percent of these deaths occur in low-income countries, where injury is making significant gains on disease as the leading cause of death in young children. In the United States and most other industrialized nations, accidental injury has surpassed disease to become the number one cause of death among children ages 14 and under.

No one device or solution can prevent all types of accidental childhood injuries; instead, child safety requires a multifaceted approach. Safe Kids, a global network of organizations, lists several actions to be considered when creating programs to reduce childhood injuries: educating adults and children about risks, designing of safe environments, conducting research, and advocating for effective laws.

One of the main pathways to improving child safety concerns education of parents, caregivers, children, healthcare practitioners, policy makers, and other target groups in order to change knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Examples of areas in which education about risks is crucial include the use of seatbelts and keeping plastic bags, choking hazards, and toxic materials out of the reach of children.

[Page 397]With the massive numbers of traffic accidents during the 20th century, much effort has been put into building safer cars, with special care to ensure that children travel safely. According to the Canada Safety Council, the correct use of a child restraint on every trip can prevent 70 percent of crash-related deaths and serious injuries to child passengers.

Some common household objects can be extremely dangerous to children. Small objects and plastic wrappings or bags should not be left with unattended children because they are choking hazards. Toxic products, such as cleansers, should be locked away out of the reach of children. Many injuries and deaths are also caused by falls, both outside and inside the house, and often these incidents can be prevented by using simple child safety devices available on the market today.

Changing children's surroundings and influencing design are also key issues when dealing with child safety. Child safety advocates promote the development and manufacture of safer products. This can be achieved by both the issuance and enforcement of regulations as well as through the development of voluntary standards and guidelines enabling injury prevention.

In order to provide sustained improvement of child safety, there is a growing need for more research, data collection, and surveillance, as well as evaluation of programs and product effectiveness. Child safety promotion has recently had to expand into new areas, namely concerning the internet. The easy access to online communities and recent cases of children being harassed online by pedophiles have sparked much discussion about how to best monitor the way children interact online.