Parenting and the Prevention of Childhood Injuries

Abstract

Injuries in childhood represent a serious public health problem in the United States. Unintentional injury is the most common cause of death and disability for children. For example, injuries are the cause of half the deaths that occur for children 1–4 years of age. Over 600,000 children are hospitalized annually for injuries, and approximately 16 million children yearly are seen in emergency rooms as a result of injury (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 1990). Injuries that are clearly unintentional are not the only sources of the problem. Child maltreatment adds to the number of injury-based fatalities, disabilities, and medical treatments. For example, in 2001 an estimated 903,000 children were confirmed by child protective agencies in the United States to have been maltreated (i.e., abuse and/or neglect), and an estimated 1,300 children died from abuse or neglect (a rate of 1.81 per 100,000 children in the population). Many more children suffered from nonfatal injuries (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], 2003). Prevention of both unintentional and maltreatment-based injuries in childhood is obviously of utmost importance. This chapter focuses on parenting-related interventions aimed at the prevention of childhood injury. Parents and other family caregivers are logical contributors to prevention of childhood injuries, in part because the injuries often occur in the home or in close proximity to a parent. This chapter focuses only on the preadolescent age group (children from infancy to 12 years of age) and does not consider injury prevention among adolescents. Two isolated areas of unintentional injury and child maltreatment have grown up side by side with little interaction between the two. The boundaries between inadvertent (unintentional) injuries and injuries attributable to child maltreatment are somewhat blurred and artificial. Peterson (1994) and others have argued that the commonalities between the two areas outnumber the differences and that it is