Preventing Unintentional Injuries to Young Children in the Home: Understanding and Influencing Parents' Safety Practices

Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of preventable deaths for children in most industrialized countries. In this article, I consider research on how parents prevent home injuries to children under 6 years and discuss an intervention aimed at improving parents' home-safety practices. Parents of young children use three types of home-safety practices: teaching about safety, modifying the environment, and supervising. Relying predominantly on teaching increases young children's risk of injury, whereas modifying the environment and supervising protect children and predict fewer injuries. Drawing on evidence about factors that motivate parents' safety practices, an intervention was developed to improve supervision: The Supervising for Home Safety program positively changed parents' appraisals about injury and supervision practices. Developing evidence-based injury-prevention programs is an effective way to address this national public-health issue.