Priorities for improving chemicals management in the WHO European Region-stakeholders' views.

BACKGROUND: Prevention of the impact of chemicals on human health and the environment is an increasing focus of public health polices and policy makers. The World Health Organization European Centre for Environment and Health wanted to know what were stakeholders' priorities for improving chemicals management and prevention. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 18 diverse stakeholders to answer this question. The interview questionnaire was developed using current WHO chemical meeting reports, the Evidence Implementation Model for Public Health Systems and categories of the theory of diffusion. Stakeholder views were attained on three main questions within the questionnaire. (i) What priority actions should be undertaken to minimize the negative impact of chemicals? (ii) Who needs to be more involved and what roles should they have? (iii) How can science and knowledge on chemicals and health be translated into policies more effectively and what are the greatest barriers to overcome? RESULTS: Cross cutting issues, such as legislation strengthening and enforcement, further collection of information, capacity building, education and awareness raising were considered priorities. The responders had the same vision on roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders. The greatest barrier to adoption, implementation and enforcement of evidence-based policies reported was leadership and political commitment to chemical safety. CONCLUSIONS: Priorities raised differed depending on knowledge, professional background and type of stakeholder. Factors influencing priority identification at the national level include international and global context, availability of information, knowledge of the current situation and evidence-based good practice, and risks and priorities identified through national assessments.

Leadership, infrastructure and capacity to support child injury prevention: can these concepts help explain differences in injury mortality rankings between 18 countries in Europe?

BACKGROUND: Mortality and morbidity rates, traditionally used indicators for child injury, are limited in their ability to explain differences in child injury between countries, are inadequate in capturing actions to address the problem of child injury and do not adequately identify progress made within countries. There is a need for a broader set of indicators to help better understand the success of countries with low rates of child injury, provide guidance and benchmarks for policy makers looking to make investments to reduce their rates of fatal and non-fatal child injury and allow monitoring of progress towards achieving these goals. This article describes an assessment of national leadership, infrastructure and capacity in the context of child injury prevention in 18 countries in Europe and explores the potential of these to be used as additional indicators to support child injury prevention practice. METHODS: Partners in 18 countries coordinated data collection on 21 items relating to leadership, infrastructure and capacity. Responses were coded into an overall score and scores for each of the three areas and were compared with child injury mortality rankings using Spearman's rank correlation. RESULTS: Overall score and scores for leadership and capacity were significantly negatively correlated to child injury mortality ranking. CONCLUSIONS: Findings of this preliminary work suggest that these three policy areas may provide important guidance for the types of commitments that are needed in the policy arena to support advances in child safety and their assessment a way to measure progress.

Parents' perceptions, attitudes and behaviours towards child safety: a study in 14 European countries.

Injury is the leading cause of death for children 0- 19 years of age in Europe, accounting for 3.1 deaths per 10 000 children per year. The youngest children of the ages 0-4 years require the most protection in this age group, with 2.5 injury-related deaths per 10 000 children in Europe annually. As parents are the primary caregivers of children, it is necessary to learn more about parents' perceptions, attitudes and behaviours towards child safety. This study presents the findings of a 14-country study in Europe on this theme. A quantitative survey of parents of children aged 5 years or under was performed in 14 EU member states in order to enable better targeting of prevention efforts aimed at educating parents. The total sample size was 2088. The results show that 95% of parents reported that they personally take measures to avoid accidental injury to their children. Their top concern with regard to safety of their children was children being hit by a car. The most common response, when asked why some parents find it difficult to protect their children from accidental injury, was not being able to watch their children constantly. Lack of awareness or knowledge about the causes of accidents was the second response. Two-thirds of parents would like to see more help from the government to prevent childhood injuries. Three-quarters of parents agreed that child injuries can be avoided. It was concluded that parents want to be better informed about the causes of child accidents and about actions they and society can take to reduce injury-related risks to children.