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H H S Department of Health and Human Services
Health Resources and Services Administration
Maternal and Child Health

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Injury & Violence Prevention and Safety Promotion

This program promotes infant, child and adolescent safety through training and technical assistance to States and other organizations. It assures that the appropriate evidence-based resources are available to end users for application in prevention efforts throughout their diverse environments.

1. What does the program address?

Injuries are the leading public health threat facing people aged 1-44 years today. More children and adolescents die from injuries and violence than all diseases combined, and injuries are the leading cause of disability. Every year, one in four children and adolescents are injured seriously enough to require medical attention, and more than 430,000 are hospitalized for their injuries. Injuries are also a leading cause of medical spending for children and adolescents. During the past four decades, researchers have made significant progress toward identifying causes of infant, child, and adolescent injuries as well as developing ways to prevent them.

State Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Programs address two injury and violence-related performance measures:

1. The rate of deaths to children aged 14 years and younger caused by motor vehicle crashes per 100,000 children.

2. The rate (per 100,000) of suicide deaths among youths aged 15 through 19.

This program aims to improve infant, child, and adolescent health and safety services and systems and, ultimately, the health and safety status of infants, children, and adolescents through promoting the application of data-driven, evidence-based strategies in protecting infants, children, and adolescents from harm.

2. Who do you reach?

The program serves a variety of audiences: state and local MCH agencies and organizations, related public health, education, and safety organizations, and other youth-serving professionals and administrators with injury and violence prevention and safety promotion.

3. How do you reach them?

The program reaches its target populations through two national Child and Adolescent Injury and Violence Prevention Resource Centers.

Children’s Safety Network (CSN) National Resource Center

Children’s Safety Network helps States and localities plan, implement, strengthen, and evaluate injury and violence prevention programs. CSN provides technical support for maternal and child health programs which have identified injury and violence-related priority areas through a needs assessment. The Center also supports the development, implementation and evaluation of injury and violence prevention activities identified through many pathways, including:

  • State Technical Assessment Team (STAT) visits performed by the Safe States Alliance
  • Recommendations from State Child Death Review Team Annual Reports

CSN provides information on evidence-informed practices, conducts literature searches, develops resource materials, provides multi-State and State-specific technical assistance based upon state-specific injury data, and performs analyses of the incidence and costs of injuries and violence.

National Center for the Review and Prevention of Child Death

The National Center for the Review and Prevention of Child Death improves and strengthens State and local capacity to perform Child Death Reviews, develop prevention-oriented recommendations and translate those recommendations to local policies and programs. CDR is a community-based action process aimed at guiding communities to identify and solve problems contributing to poor child and adolescent health outcomes. Specifically, using death as a sentinel event, CDR is the systematic examination of factors that play a role in death which integrates information about the health, safety and personal characteristics of individuals, families, the community environment, and information descriptive of medical care and community health and social/welfare systems. Information from CDR reviews is then used to focus planning and policy development, to improve health and safety systems, and to enhance efforts to develop and maintain risk reduction and prevention programs for children and adolescents. CDR is being used as a model to better define the environmental factors around all child deaths and lead the way for future interventions and enables local communities to define local prevention priorities. The Center’s methods include providing technical support and training to CDR coordinators and teams, as well as supporting States in the collection, analysis and application of CDR data.

4. What has been the impact of your program? Notable Accomplishments?

Through their work in safety promotion, the programs help protect infants, children, adolescents and families from the threat of injury and violence. Recent accomplishments include:

  • Significant contribution to a Child Death Review Supplement in the February 2011 issue of the journal, Injury Prevention
  • Publication of a series of documents titled “What Works?” which summarize cost-outcome analyses for a number of safety topics including Traffic Safety, Substance Abuse, Violence, and more.
  • Facilitated self-assessment of MCH Programs on the integration of injury and violence within services to families, identifying opportunities for further development.
  • Increased integration of injury and violence-related performance measures into State MCH programs

5. What are your future goals?

The program is working towards a number of goals, including the following:

  • Enhance the abilities of states to use state-specific CDR and injury data.
  • Encourage all states to take advantage of the Multi-state CDR Case Reporting System.
  • Increase the implementation of evidence-based practices for injury and violence prevention.
  • Strengthen injury and violence prevention and CDR regional networks.
  • Strengthen existing and develop new partnerships with safety stakeholders and organizations.

6. Do you have any Special partnerships?

HRSA program staff and both Resource Centers build and sustain partnerships with a wide variety of public and private organizations. Examples include: Internal (HRSA) Partners

  • Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID) Resource Center Consortium
  • Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) Program
  • Maternal and Child Health Block Grant Program
  • Federal Traumatic Brain Injury Program
  • Federal Poison Control Program

Federal Partners

  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
  • Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)
  • Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
  • Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools (OSDFS)
  • National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

National Partners

  • Association for Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP)
  • Association for State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)
  • Safe States Alliance
  • CityMatCH
  • Safe Kids USA
  • Injury-Free Coalitions
  • National Organizations for Youth Safety (NOYS)
  • National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)

7. Do you have resources you would like to make available?

Child Injury Prevention Tool- Selecting Best Practices Website: http://www.childinjuryprevention.org/ 

National Center for the Review and Prevention of Child Death: Website: http://www.childdeathreview.org 

Children’s Safety Network (CSN) National Resource Center Website: http://www.childrenssafetynetwork.org 

Fact Sheet Located: http://www.childrenssafetynetwork.org/publications_resources/PDF/programplanning/csnivpcenter.pdf

Publications and Resources Web Link: http://www.childrenssafetynetwork.org/publications_resources/showTopics.asp