Children's Safety Network
From Winter 1995
Volume II, Number 1
The Children's Safety Network (CSN) consists of six resource centers funded
by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) of the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services. CSN provides state and regional maternal and
child health (MCH) agencies with technical assistance, information, and
resources to help integrate injury and violence prevention programs into
existing MCH programs; facilitates the development of new injury prevention
programs; and conducts research and policy activities that improve the state-of-the-art
of injury and violence prevention.
Four of the six centers focus on specific issues: economics, rural injuries,
adolescent violence, and data. Two "core sites" assist agencies
in designing, implementing, and evaluating injury and violence prevention
programs; identify and collect resources; plan and participate in conferences
and workshops; provide materials, training, and assistance to those who
work with decisionmakers and the media; develop and disseminate materials
for practitioners and researchers; and maintain a technical expert referral
network. CSN's primary audience is MCH programs. However, all the centers
also provide publications and technical assistance to other types of organizations,
including traffic safety agencies.
Several centers are able to expand their focus on traffic safety with support
from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The CSN
Resource Center for Insurance and Economics is cofunded by NHTSA and MCHB.
The two core sites share staff with NHTSA-funded traffic safety projects.
Such funding alliances help build links between the public health and traffic
safety communities by enabling CSN to focus on issues of mutual interest
to traffic safety and public health agencies, disseminate materials to each,
and include information about both disciplines in CSN publications.
One of the core sites, the CSN National Injury and Violence Prevention Center
at Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), in Newton, Massachusetts, includes
traffic safety content in many of its training, technical assistance, research,
and publication activities. For example, its publication Preventing Adolescent
Unintentional Injuries: A Resource Guide for MCH Professionals includes
case studies of MCH motor vehicle injury prevention activities. Another
publication, CSNotes , typically includes information about traffic
safety research. EDC also houses a number of NHTSA-funded projects to promote
collaboration between traffic safety and public health professionals. These
projects share staff, enhance the impact of individual grants, promote collaboration
among various disciplines and constituencies, and benefit both the traffic
safety and public health communities. It allows products developed under
the NHTSA grant, such as Building Bridges and the Putting Partnerships
Into Practice Conference Summary to reach CSN's public health mailing
list, and ensures that materials developed by CSN under the MCHB grant,
such as CSNotes and Preventing Unintentional Adolescent Injuries,
are distributed to governor's highway safety offices and other traffic safety
professionals.
EDC is also the home of the CSN Adolescent Violence Prevention Resource
Center, which focuses on violence prevention among children and youth.
The second core site, the CSN National Injury and Violence Prevention Center
at the National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health (NCEMCH)
in Washington, D.C., also receives funds from both MCH and NHTSA. One of
its cofunded projects, a collaboration with the National Resource Center
for Health and Safety in Childcare, promotes child occupant protection education
and safe transportation in, and through, out-of-the home childcare providers.
This project:
- promotes standards for safe transportation of children in childcare
centers and family childcare homes
- works with childcare licensing and regulatory agencies, Child Care Development
Block Grant programs, childcare advocates, childcare center directors, family
childcare associations and providers, state MCH directors, state Children
With Special Needs directors, parents, and children to educate preschool
children, parents, and childcare providers about child occupant protection
- links childcare providers with existing resources for occupant protection
The childcare provider project demonstrates the benefits of cofunding. As
Jean Athey, Ph.D., director of Injury Prevention and Emergency Medical Services
for Children (EMSC) Programs at MCHB, points out, cofunding allows NHTSA
and MCHB to achieve goals that neither can afford on its own. She also notes
that each agency has its own constituency. By collaborating with an NCEMCH
project, NHTSA can communicate the child occupant protection message through
an organization familiar to childcare providers. For more information on
the childcare provider project, contact Esha Bhatia at (703) 524-7802.
This center also produces publications of value to traffic safety professionals.
One volume of its Biblio Alert! resources guides, titled Focus
on Alcohol and Injury contains abstracts of materials and resources
pertinent to preventing impaired driving. Another publication titled Building
Safe Communities: State and Local Strategies for Preventing Injury and Violence
includes descriptions of state, county, and community motor vehicle and
bicycle safety projects.
Each of the other CSN sites has a special focus. The CSN Injury Data Technical
Assistance Center in San Diego provides technical assistance on collecting,
analyzing, and using data. Center staff help agencies identify sources of
data and provide advice on what data should be collected, what questions
can (and should) be asked of the data, and how to interpret the results.
This center has developed a number of useful products, single copies of
which are free upon request. The Fatal Injury Matrix, available in
DOS and Macintosh formats, is a software spreadsheet for injury data analysis.
The motor vehicle section may be customized by the user.
Another useful center publication is The Legislation Database: A State
By State Comparison Of Safety Legislation, which compares traffic safety
legislation for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, including
mandatory seat belt laws, child safety seat legislation, DUI/DWI laws (including
blood alcohol concentration limits), truck bed restraint laws, and motorcycle
and bicycle helmet mandates. Each legislative category summarizes the history
and requirements of the law. For example, the description of mandatory seat
belt laws contains information on when the legislation went into effect,
if it covers the rear seat, whether enforcement is primary or secondary,
whether drivers will be held responsible if passengers are not buckled,
and the penalty.
The CSN Rural Injury Prevention Resource Center located in Marshfield, Wisconsin,
focuses on the special needs of rural areas and farm life. Children and
adolescents in rural areas are exposed to a number of special injury risks,
including those associated with walking and bicycling on roads that are
often dark and lack sidewalks, all-terrain vehicles, farm machinery, and
pickup trucks. The center has produced a "Provider Packet" on
Snowmobiles and Children and will have a packet on All-Terrain
Vehicles and Children available soon. Single copies are free. The center
also created a colorful folder with bicycle helmet safety messages for elementary
and middle school students. The Rural Injury Prevention Resource Center,
in conjunction with the National Farm Medicine Center, will hold a Child
and Adolescent Rural Injury Control Conference on March 8 and 9, 1995,
in Middleton, Wisconsin. This conference will feature general sessions,
breakout groups, and scientific poster sessions and program displays focused
on a broad range of rural injury problems, including traffic safety and
data collection.
The CSN Economics and Insurance Resource Center in Landover, Maryland, is
a collaborative project of the National Public Services Research Institute
(NPSRI) and the National SAFE KIDS Campaign. It is cofunded by MCHB and
NHTSA. SAFE KIDS staff use NPSRI research to effect change through the production
and dissemination of educational and promotional materials.
A unique activity of this center is its estimates of the costs of injuries
and the cost-effectiveness of injury prevention programs. The center provides
states with estimates on the costs of a particular injury problem if the
state can provide its injury data by age group. The Economics and Insurance
Resource Center has, for example, estimated the costs of driving under the
influence for a number of states. It has also estimated cost-effectiveness
of interventions including bicycle helmets and child safety seats. Cost
estimates have many important uses. They can justify the funds spent on
injury prevention. As Center Director Ted Miller notes: "Costs let
us set prevention priorities. They give us a single measure to compare programs.
They allow us to allocate our injury resources at a more detailed level."
This service is not available for regions other than states. However, enterprising
injury prevention professionals have adapted CSN cost estimates for their
communities with much success. See The Costs of Injury
for an account of one such effort.
This center also produces research papers and fact sheets on injury epidemiology
and the costs of injuries. Their Childhood Injury: Cost & Prevention
Facts series includes information on childhood injury, bicycle helmets,
child safety seats, and other issues.
Two other important members of the MCH community are the Emergency Medical
Services for Children (EMSC) Resource Centers--part of a larger joint MCHB-NHTSA
program to reduce the toll of pediatric emergencies by assisting EMS systems
to meet the special needs of children as well as to reduce childhood morbidity
and mortality. The National EMSC Resource Alliance, housed in the Harbor-UCLA
Medical Center in Torrance, California, provides technical assistance to
EMSC grantees and disseminates the grantees' products. A publication catalog
is available at no cost, as is EMSC News, a quarterly publication
about EMSC projects and other innovations in pediatric emergency care. The
EMSC National Resource Center at Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C.,
assists state EMSC projects in coalition building, public policy initiatives,
and long-term planning for post-grant funding. A full-time staff injury
prevention advisor provides EMSC grantees with technical assistance on designing
and implementing projects.
http://www.edc.org/HHD/csn/buildbridges/bb2.1/csnart.html
Revised: October 22, 1996
©1997 Education Development Center, Inc.
