Trauma Center-Based Surveillance of Nontraffic Pedestrian Injury among California Children.

INTRODUCTION: Every year in the United States, thousands of young children are injured by passenger vehicles in driveways or parking areas. Little is known about risk factors, and incidence rates are difficult to estimate because ascertainment using police collision reports or media sources is incomplete. This study used surveillance at trauma centers to identify incidents and parent interviews to obtain detailed information on incidents, vehicles, and children. METHODS: Eight California trauma centers conducted surveillance of nontraffic pedestrian collision injury to children aged 14 years or younger from January 2005 to July 2007. Three of these centers conducted follow-up interviews with family members. RESULTS: Ninety-four injured children were identified. Nine children (10%) suffered fatal injury. Seventy children (74%) were 4 years old or younger. Family members of 21 victims from this study (23%) completed an interview. Of these 21 interviewed victims, 17 (81%) were male and 13 (62%) were 1 or 2 years old. In 13 cases (62%), the child was backed over, and the driver was the mother or father in 11 cases (52%). Fifteen cases (71%) involved a sport utility vehicle, pickup truck, or van. Most collisions occurred in a residential driveway. CONCLUSION: Trauma center surveillance can be used for case ascertainment and for collecting information on circumstances of nontraffic pedestrian injuries. Adoption of a specific external cause-of-injury code would allow passive surveillance of these injuries. Research is needed to understand the contributions of family, vehicular, and environmental characteristics and injury risk to inform prevention efforts.

Partnering with mutual aid associations to provide home injury prevention.

Injury is the leading cause of death and a leading cause of morbidity among children in the US. Poor, minority children, especially those with language and cultural differences, are disproportionately affected. The traditional childhood injury prevention approaches (eg, physician office counseling, public service announcements) may not be effective when significant language and cultural differences exist between provider and client. Partnering with mutual aid associations to create low literacy education tools for their home visitors to use to teach immigrant families about home safety may be one method to provide injury prevention information.

Child maltreatment awareness for prehospital providers.

Child abuse continues to go undetected by hospital-based health care providers because clues may exist exclusively in the child's home. Emergency personnel are in the unique position of being able to assess the home environment. An educational intervention was developed to increase the prehospital providers' awareness of how to assess, report, and document suspected child maltreatment based on findings in the home.