Strategies for Playground Injury Prevention

Abstract

Preventing injuries to children, especially debilitating and life threatening, requires an awareness of where these types of injuries occur during the school days. This review examines falls from playground equipment, events that have been identified as the leading causes of nonfatal unintentional injuries for children. Thus, the issue of playground safety is a topic of concern for health educators. School health educators play an essential role in developing safe and healthy outdoor play environments for children. This paper highlights the importance of injury prevention awareness and outlines different strategies that health educators can take for preventing playground injuries. In addition, this paper examines a project that was conducted in the state of Iowa in relation to what effects playground surfacing materials and staff training may have on injury prevention on school playgrounds. The results of the project concluded that with the addition of proper surfacing material and staff training, playground injuries could be reduced. Health educators need to investigate the types of playground injuries in current programs and develop a strategy to keep children healthy and active.