623 The Benefits of Burn Awareness Week in a Large Metro Area Hospital

Abstract

Abstract Introduction According to the American Burn Association, Burn Awareness Week is an annual event that provides an “opportunity for organizations to mobilize burn, fire and life safety educators to unite in sharing a common burn awareness and prevention message in our communities.” In 2018, due to alarming data indicating that a high volume of our children’s burn admissions was a result of scald burns, we recognized the need to participate in our first Burn Awareness Week and involve our community stakeholders. Methods Analysis of our data from the 2017 trauma registry determined that 61% of pediatric burn admits were scald burns and most were < 6 years old. Geo-mapping identified at risk areas by ethnicity and zip-codes. Our Burn Awareness Week messaging was designed based on this information. We predominantly targeted English and Spanish speaking families with the goal of increasing awareness of the prevalence and prevention of scald burns and evidence-based first aid treatment. Most materials created were bilingual and included an interactive burn awareness quiz with rewards, firefighter coloring books, bilingual first aid magnets, and t-shirts displaying the scald awareness message, “Hot Liquids Burn Like Fire.” Bilingual story board testimonials of real patients were displayed. Multimedia platforms provided public service announcements in English and Spanish. Results More than 1500 people attended the booth during the 5-day event. We designed and implemented our first Burn Awareness Week with participation from community stake-holders. A post-event survey identified that the interactive burn awareness quiz, first aid magnets, t-shirts, and story boards were most effective in delivering our message and well-received by the community. This event served as a catalyst to continue burn awareness and education with clinics and interdepartmental units. In addition, a community hospital requested our materials and information. During our event, one of our community stakeholders successfully secured a proclamation for Burn Awareness Week from our state Governor. Conclusions Burn Awareness Week enabled our institution and our community to get involved in addressing an identified pressing public health issue. We created a template for our future participation in Burn Awareness Week based on generated data that allows us to target demographic locations with specific burn related issues within our community. Applicability of Research to Practice Scald burns is the most common burn injury in young children admitted at our hospital. A collaborative event between our hospital and community stake-holders provided burn awareness and prevention education to our community to help reduce such injuries in the future.