A National Program for Injury Prevention in Children and Adolescents: The Injury Free Coalition for Kids

Abstract

ABSTRACT Injury is the leading cause of death and a major source of preventable disability in children. Mechanisms of injury are rooted in a complex web of social, economic, environmental, criminal, and behavioral factors that necessitate a multifac-eted, systematic injury prevention approach. This article describes the injury burden and the way physicians, community coalitions, and a private foundation teamed to impact the problem first in an urban minority community and then through a national program. Through our injury prevention work in a resource-limited neighborhood, a national model evolved that provides a systematic framework through which educa-tion and other interventions are implemented. Interventions are aimed at changing the community and home environments physically (safe play areas and elimination of com-munity and home hazards) and socially (education and supervised extracurricular activities with mentors). This program, based on physician–community partnerships and private foundation financial support, expanded to 40 sites in 37 cities, representing all 10 US trauma regions. Each site is a local adaptation of the Injury Free Coalition model also referred to as the ABC’s of injury prevention: A, “analyze injury dat