Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/preventing-injuries-to-children-interventions-that-really-work/5013154/
Ann tells a story: One winter's day a couple years ago, I noticed my three-year-old friend Jamie emphatically shaking her head "No!" and making a slicing motion across her throat with her hand as I tried to tie the drawstrings of her hood. I later discovered she had learned in preschool that drawstrings were a potential choking hazard. Not having the vocabulary to convey this important fact, she had tried, through pantomime, to tell me to stop. Though I have worked with children many years and thought I knew all about injury prevention, it took a three year old to show me I still had a lot to learn, and that children really take to heart what their teachers, parents, and other adults show and tell them about injury prevention.Review of injury studies: Two years ago at the Harborview Injury Prevention Center in Seattle, Washington, we completed a review of more than 1,169 studies of interventions to prevent or reduce injuries to children. Our review was spurred by the many needlessly injured children seen in the emergency room and hospital, and our research question was simple and straightforward: which interventions really work?
The following interventions were found, in properly evaluated studies, to ...