What works?
What can we do about it now and in the future? (Evidence based strategies)
The most successful way to prevent injuries is to look at injuries from a wholistic point of view and to integrate the risk factors with the social and environmental factors that lead to the injury. Using multiple strategies in a community (also known as multi-strategic, a multifactorial approach community based approach or an ecological approach) has been shown to work.
The areas you will need to consider strategies from include:
When choosing what you can do about an injury issue the best way forward is to select actions from the scientific literature (particularly systematic reviews, meta-analyses and random control trials as these will give you the highest levels of effectiveness on projects/programs that have been implemented and evaluated.[38]
What is good evidence?
There are different levels of evidence according to the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC):
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Level I
Evidence from systematic reviews of all relevant randomised-controlled trials including Cochrane reviews, other systematic reviews and meta-analyses. (Gold Standard)
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Level II
Evidence from at least one properly designed randomised-control trial.
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Level III
Evidence from well designed controlled trials, without randomisation or from well designed cohort studies or from multiple time regulated case controlled studies
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Level IV
Opinions of respected authorities, based on clinical experience, descriptive studies or reports of expert committees.
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Where to find the evidence
To find information from the literature on what works for child injury prevention try visiting:
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Kidsafe QLD or the Child Accident Prevention Foundation of Australia - dedicated to the prevention of unintentional death and injury to children.
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The Future of Children -This groups aim to promote effective programs for children based on research. They have conducted a
systematic review on unintentional injuries in children.
What you need to think about when choosing interventions
Select interventions appropriate to your target group that:
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are effective and evidenced-based (where available)
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reduce the most severe and costly injuries
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are specific for the target group (eg. children and parents).
Sometimes the causes or settings of injuries are not easily evident as there could be underlying issues such as poor housing design, insufficient funds for the family to purchase a helmet etc. These issues are considered the social and environmental factors that impact on health and wellbeing.
It may be too difficult to address all aspects of child injury prevention at once, so when choosing what to do it may be useful to:
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narrow the initial focus of implementation and prioritise your efforts, try to undertake interventions incrementally,
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be opportunistic and take advantage of linking with other groups, events and activities,
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think long term and work toward a multi-strategic approach
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look for quick success and early wins as this will build enthusiasm and momentum with others.
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