It's not the amusement park or the baseball field, the school hallway or the swimming pool. The place your child is most likely to be injured, say researchers, is your very own home.
Researchers from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Ohio identified injuries and emergency department visits among children and teens under 20 years of age. For each identified injury, researchers noted:
- the age of the injured child
- the type of injury - such as a fall or cut
- where the injury occurred - at home, school or child care, or in public
- the severity of the injury
- the body part affected by the injury
- whether the injury required hospitalization
Overall, researchers estimated that there are 4 million emergency department visits for childhood injuries that occur at home each year. More than half a million children have moderate to severe injuries, and more than 73,680 children are hospitalized each year from injuries that occur in private homes. Children under 5 years of age were more likely to be injured than kids older than 9, and boys visited the emergency department more often than girls for injuries that occurred at home. Falls were the most common type of injury - they account for an estimated 1.5 million emergency department visits annually. The extremities - including the arms, legs, hands, and feet - were the most frequently injured body parts.
What This Means to You: Although the results of this study show that at-home injuries are very common, many residential injuries could be prevented by taking a few precautions. The first and most important way to avoid injuries at home is to make sure your child has adequate adult supervision. Then take care to create a safe environment for your child by childproofing your home and utilizing the wide variety of safety devices - including stairway gates, electric outlet covers, doorknob covers, and toilet and stove locks - that are available. Finally, if you have any questions about how to prevent at-home injuries or how to tell if your home is safe, talk to your child's doctor.
Source: Kieran J. Phelan, MD, MS; Jane Khoury, MS; Heidi Kalkwarf, PhD; Bruce Lanphear, MD, MPH; Public Health Reports, January-February 2005
Reviewed by: Steven Dowshen, MD
Date reviewed: March 2005
