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Deanie Wimmer reporting We see commercials and billboards touting safety campaigns. But do prevention efforts really make a difference?
We dug up some research that you should find interesting.
You've heard the slogans, maybe child proofed your home. Prevention can and has made a huge difference, but not with kids of every age.
A recent safety fair attracted an expo center full of school kids, moms and babies, eager to learn about and practice safety.
"Taylee, 6: "If there's a fire, and if someone breaks into our house, I have to call the cops."
Amber Russel, Mom: "Just to check out the new inventions and things like that that we heard to keep your kids safe."
Lindsey Middlemiss, Mom: "To learn more about the safeties that they have here, what the new inventions that they have."
Research from the Safe Kids Coalition shows their efforts and awareness campaigns in recent years have made a huge difference. Accidental injury death rates among kids have decreased by 40-percent.
But an area of concern, injury death rates among babies has decreased only 10-percent. The leading causes of accidental death involve: automobiles, drowning and choking.
So, Janet Brooks with Primary Children's Medical Center is focused these days on proper car restraints.
Most parents recognize the need with infants. But a few dozen older children die in Utah each year, that likely would have survived in a booster seat.
Janet Brooks,Primary Children's Medical Center: "That's sad, come on community, these are our children we've lost, that was a classroom full of children."
So stay vigilant, our efforts to keep our kids safe are making a difference. But obviously, we have a lot of room to improve on that mission.
