Parents’ experience with child safety restraint in China

BACKGROUND: Child safety restraints are effective measures in protecting children from an injury while traveling in a car. However, the rate of child restraint use is extremely low in Chinese cities. Parent drivers could play an important role in promoting child safety restraint use, but not all of them take active responsibility. METHODS: This study used a qualitative approach and included 14 in-depth interviews among parents with a child, under the age of 6, living in Shantou City (7 child safety restraint users and 7 non-users). Purposive sampling was used to recruit eligible parent drivers who participated in a previous observation study. Interview data were collected from March to April 2013. The audio taped and transcribed data were coded and analyzed to identify key themes. RESULTS: Four key themes on child safety restraint emerged from the in-depth interviews with parents. These included 1) Having a child safety restraint installed in the rear seat with an adult sitting next to the restrained child is ideal, and child safety restraint is seen as an alternative when adult accompaniment is not available; 2) Having effective parental education strategies could help make a difference in child safety restraint use; 3) Inadequate promotion and parents’ poor safety awareness contribute to the low rate of child safety restraint in China; 4) Mandatory legislation on child safety restraint use could be an effective approach. CONCLUSION: Inadequate promotion and low awareness of safe traveling by parents were closely linked to low child safety seat usage under the circumstance of no mandatory legislation. Future intervention efforts need to focus on increasing parents’ safe travel awareness combined with CSS product promotion before the laws are enacted

Volunteering in adolescence and young adulthood crime involvement: a longitudinal analysis from the add health study

Background: Experiences in adolescence may have a lasting impact on adulthood. The objective of this study is to evaluate the association between adolescent (12–18 years of age) volunteerism with the incidence of illegal behaviors, arrests, and convictions in adulthood (>18 years of age). Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study using secondary data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Students from grades 7–12 were recruited in 1994–1995 (n = 20,745), and then followed in 2001–2002 (n = 14,322) and in 2008–2009 (n = 12,288). In 2000–2001, participants were retrospectively asked about their volunteering experience from 12 to 18 years of age. Consequently, participants were divided into non-volunteers, self-volunteers, adult-required volunteers, and court-ordered volunteers. Groups were compared for rates of illegal behaviors, arrest, and convictions in adulthood (>18 years of age) using weighted generalized linear mixed negative binomial models while accounting for sampling design. Results: Relative to non-volunteers, self-volunteers reported 11 % fewer illegal behaviors (RR: 0.89, 95 % CI: 0.80, 0.99), 31 % fewer arrests (RR: 0.69, 95 %: 0.57, 0.85), and 39 % fewer convictions (RR: 0.61, 95 % CI: 0.47, 0.79) by age 18–28 years, and 28 % fewer illegal behaviors, 53 % fewer arrests, and 36 % fewer convictions by age 24–34. In comparison the adult-required volunteers also reported fewer arrests and convictions; however, they reported more illegal behaviors than the non-volunteers. The court-ordered volunteers reported higher rates of criminal involvement than the non-volunteers, throughout. Conclusion: This study suggests that volunteering in adolescence may reduce crime involvement in adulthood

A probabilistic sampling method (PSM) for estimating geographic distance to health services when only the region of residence is known

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The need to estimate the distance from an individual to a service provider is common in public health research. However, estimated distances are often imprecise and, we suspect, biased due to a lack of specific residential location data. In many cases, to protect subject confidentiality, data sets contain only a ZIP Code or a county.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This paper describes an algorithm, known as "the probabilistic sampling method" (PSM), which was used to create a distribution of estimated distances to a health facility for a person whose region of residence was known, but for which demographic details and centroids were known for smaller areas within the region. From this distribution, the median distance is the most likely distance to the facility. The algorithm, using Monte Carlo sampling methods, drew a probabilistic sample of all the smaller areas (Census blocks) within each participant's reported region (ZIP Code), weighting these areas by the number of residents in the same age group as the participant. To test the PSM, we used data from a large cross-sectional study that screened women at a clinic for intimate partner violence (IPV). We had data on each woman's age and ZIP Code, but no precise residential address. We used the PSM to select a sample of census blocks, then calculated network distances from each census block's centroid to the closest IPV facility, resulting in a distribution of distances from these locations to the geocoded locations of known IPV services. We selected the median distance as the most likely distance traveled and computed confidence intervals that describe the shortest and longest distance within which any given percent of the distance estimates lie. We compared our results to those obtained using two other geocoding approaches. We show that one method overestimated the most likely distance and the other underestimated it. Neither of the alternative methods produced confidence intervals for the distance estimates. The algorithm was implemented in R code.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The PSM has a number of benefits over traditional geocoding approaches. This methodology improves the precision of estimates of geographic access to services when complete residential address information is unavailable and, by computing the expected distribution of possible distances for any respondent and associated distance confidence limits, sensitivity analyses on distance access measures are possible. Faulty or imprecise distance measures may compromise decisions about service location and misdirect scarce resources.</p

Public health application of predictive modeling: An example from farm vehicle crashes

Background: The goal of predictive modelling is to identify the likelihood of future events, such as the predictive modelling used in climate science to forecast weather patterns and significant weather occurrences. In public health, increasingly sophisticated predictive models are used to predict health events in patients and to screen high risk individuals, such as for cardiovascular disease and breast cancer. Although causal modelling is frequently used in epidemiology to identify risk factors, predictive modelling provides highly useful information for individual risk prediction and for informing courses of treatment. Such predictive knowledge is often of great utility to physicians, counsellors, health education specialists, policymakers or other professionals, who may then advice course correction or interventions to prevent adverse health outcomes from occurring. In this manuscript, we use an example dataset that documents farm vehicle crashes and conventional statistical methods to forecast the risk of an injury or death in a farm vehicle crash for a specific individual or a scenario. Results: Using data from 7094 farm crashes that occurred between 2005 and 2010 in nine mid-western states, we demonstrate and discuss predictive model fitting approaches, model validation techniques using external datasets, and the calculation and interpretation of predicted probabilities. We then developed two automated risk prediction tools using readily available software packages. We discuss best practices and common limitations associated with predictive models built from observational datasets. Conclusions: Predictive analysis offers tools that could aid the decision making of policymakers, physicians, and environmental health practitioners to improve public health

Child safety restraint patterns in Moldova

ABSTRACT Objective: The Republic of Moldova has one of the European region’s highest road traffic injury rates and also has an increase in motorization and exposure of children as vehicle passengers. This study describes child restraint use, and parents’ knowledge and attitudes toward child restraint based on observations in Chisinau, the country’s capital and largest city. The study aims to describe the use of child restraints and to compare data with existing standards of good practice. Methods: An observational study on child safety restraint use was conducted in 2018. Observational sites included 22 early education institutions, where drivers (n¼611) and child passengers (n¼710) were observed. Observations were conducted as motor vehicles parked or pulled to a stop near the early education institutions and included a driver survey on knowledge and attitudes toward restraint legislation and child safety behavior. Results: Of the 710 child passengers observed, 462 (65.1%) were appropriately restrained, 145 (20.4%) were seated in restraints inappropriate for the child and 103 (14.5%) of children were unrestrained. Younger children (0-3 year-old) were 7 times more likely to be properly restrained compared with children with ages between 4 and 6 (OR 1.92, 95% CI 1.15 to 3.22). Two-thirds out of 609 observed drivers with full study data, N¼431 (70,8%), knew about the mandatory legislation on using child safety restraints in the Republic of Moldova. The drivers using child safety restraints responded that they used them because of their safety features, and the major reason for nonuse was high price/affordability. Conclusion: This study, the first to document child safety restraint use among children, indicates that much progress has been made, in that the majority of children are restrained and most drivers of children are aware of safety policies. However, progress can be made to increase knowledge and motivation to safely transport children, and to ensure safety seats are affordable and available. These data will be an important foundation on which to advocate for increased safety activities, child restraint policies, educational approaches in Moldova and to monitor progress over time

Evaluation of Iowa’s Anti-Bullying Law

Bullying is the most common form of youth aggression. Although 49 of all 50 states in the U.S. have an anti-bullying law in place to prevent bullying, little is known about the effectiveness of these laws. Our objective was to measure the effectiveness of Iowa’s anti-bullying law in preventing bullying and improving teacher response to bullying

Geographical Detector-Based Risk Assessment of the Under-Five Mortality in the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, China

On 12 May, 2008, a devastating earthquake registering 8.0 on the Richter scale occurred in Sichuan Province, China, taking tens of thousands of lives and destroying the homes of millions of people. Many of the deceased were children, particular children less than five years old who were more vulnerable to such a huge disaster than the adult. In order to obtain information specifically relevant to further researches and future preventive measures, potential risk factors associated with earthquake-related child mortality need to be identified. We used four geographical detectors (risk detector, factor detector, ecological detector, and interaction detector) based on spatial variation analysis of some potential factors to assess their effects on the under-five mortality. It was found that three factors are responsible for child mortality: earthquake intensity, collapsed house, and slope. The study, despite some limitations, has important implications for both researchers and policy makers

A profile of traumatic brain injury within hospital emergency departments — a retrospective study in the Republic of Moldova

Abstract Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a critical public health and socio- economic problem throughout the world, making epidemiological monitoring of incidence, prevalence, and outcome of TBI necessary. TBI is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in adolescents, young adults, and the elderly, one of the leading causes being road traffic accidents. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted among patients with TBI within 2 medical institutions in Chisinau municipality: Emergency Medicine Institute (EMI) and Valentin Ignatenco Municipal Children’s Hospital (MCH). A questionnaire was applied, completed on the basis of medical records according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 10 codes. The collection period was August 1-October 31, 2018. Data were uploaded using the existing electronic data collection tool—Red Cap and analyzed through Microsoft Excel. Data collection was performed by a resident neurosurgery and a scientific researcher. The ethics committee’s approval has been obtained. Results: There have been identified 150 patients: 57 cases (38.5%) of TBI among children and 93 cases (61.5%) among adults aged between 18 - 73 years old. A large majority (62%) of head injuries were among patients from the urban area (most in adults—60% and males—74%). The most common mechanisms of head injury were falls (53.3%) and road traffic injuries (24%), followed by assault (14.7%) and struck by/or against (8%). The distributions by place of occurrence highlighted that most injuries occurred at home (33.4%) and in transport area (25.3%). Most head injuries were registered among men 121 (81.2%) with a predominance of minor Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) (65.1%), followed by moderate GCS (9.4%), while in women all cases with GCS minor (18.8%). Conclusion: The data obtained could be useful for the hospital administration in managing the necessary resources and for conducting information campaigns among the high-risk groups