Massachusetts Personal Injury Library
Children's Accidental Deaths Can Be Prevented
The World Health Organization and UNICEF reports that more than 2,000 children die every day as a result of preventable injuries, for a total of 830,000 deaths each year. This report is the first comprehensive global assessment of childhood injuries and prescribes how to prevent them. They estimate if preventive measures are adopted everywhere, at least 1,000 children’s lives can be saved every day!
Unfortunately, children in poorer families and communities are at increased risk of these injuries because they don’t have access to quality health care and preventive programs. Africa has the highest rate for children’s accidental injury deaths. The lowest rates are found in high-income countries in Europe and the Western Pacific such as Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Although many countries have reduced the number of child injury deaths, it still accounts for 40% of all child deaths in those countries. The report finds that the top five causes of injury deaths are vehicle accidents, drowning, burns, falls, and poisoning. The report cites prevention measures that they recommend for all countries to adopt. Many of these measures can be easily adopted by parents and childcare givers. Some of these measures require regulations that need to be adopted by policy makers. These include laws on child-appropriate seatbelts and helmets; hot tap water temperature regulations; child-resistant closures on medicine bottles; safer lighters and household product containers; separate traffic lanes for motorcycles or bicycles; draining unnecessary water from baths and buckets; redesigning nursery furniture, toys and playground equipment; and strengthening emergency medical care and rehabilitation services.
There are other measures that the report cites that cause concern by the researchers writing the report by WHO and UNICEF. Among these concerns about children’s issues: that blister packaging for tablets may not be child resistant; that airbags in the front seat of a car could be harmful to children under 13 years; that butter, sugar, oil and other traditional remedies should not be used on burns; that public education campaigns on their own don’t reduce rates of drowning.
Kiley Law Group located in Boston and Andover, Massachusetts takes time when speaking with you about your case and works with you on a contingent basis so there are NO FEES unless our trained Boston child injury lawyers wins your case. Call now for a FREE evaluation of your case – 1-888-208-1695.
