Child Safety — By Accident or Design?

Abstract

The millennium is almost upon us but depressingly we already know what the major child health problem will be at the start of the new century — accidents. For the whole of this century and especially over the last 15 years it has been a stated aim of UK governments to reduce accidents with specific goals having been set out in documents such as The Health of the Nation and in 1998 Our Healthier Nation. However, there has been no co‐ordinated approach to the implementation of these initiatives. The copyright policy of no co‐ordination, together with other failings in production of safety promotion materials, constitute a serious barrier to success. An opportunity exists, for taking action to address these shortcomings, to develop imaginative initiatives to be put in place in time for both the millennium and the achievement of stated accident prevention goals. It is important to emphasise here the age old problem of terminology. As with any specialist subject it is often the case that words common in day to day conversation take on a slightly different or very specific meaning. Titus ‘accident’ in this context means an unintentional event leading to injury or harm to individuals. ‘Risk’ relates to the likelihood of something potentially dangerous or hazardous actually causing injury or harm. ‘Risk assessment’, therefore, means making judgements about the scale, severity and options for control of the dangerous situation or activity. Putting a perspective on the accident problem will also be helpful in explaining both why accidents pose a health problem and why children are being highlighted as a target group.

Citation

Woolley, A. (1999), "Child Safety — By Accident or Design?", International Journal of Advertising and Marketing to Children, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 63-68. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb027597