Potential interventions for addressing the main causes of unintentional injuries
| Drowning | Fire/burns | Road injuries | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intervention | Strength of evidence | Intervention | Strength of evidence | Intervention | Strength of evidence |
| Eliminate water hazards—fill ditches, empty buckets etc. | Effective | Smoke detectors | Effective | Child restraint systems and use of seat belts by older children | Effective |
| Introduce a barrier | Effective* | Fire retardant fibres | Promising | Creating safe routes to school—school buses | Insufficient |
| Wearing personal flotation devices | Promising | Safer lighting source/stoves | Promising | Infrastructure design—to reduce speeding (area traffic calming measures), separation of pedestrian from vehicles | Promising—Effective |
| Swimming classes | Insufficient | Fire retardant household materials | Promising | Vehicle design—car fronts, crumple zone, alcohol interlock systems | Promising |
| Lifeguards | Promising | Designated burn units/centre | Effective | Bicycle and Motorcycle Helmets | Effective* |
| Education/parental supervision | Promising | Education/parental supervision | Promising | Safety education and skills | Insufficient |
| Isolation pool fencing (four-sided) | Effective | Legislations—temperature of hot water, smoking, fireworks | Effective | Improving visibility of pedestrians | Promising |
| Legislations—pool fencing, alcohol, boating under the influence | Effective | Residential sprinklers | Promising | Legislations—graduated driver license, mandatory child restraints law, drink-driving law, helmet use | Promising |
| Combined approaches | Effective | Combined approaches | Effective | Combined approaches | Effective |
Source: World Report on Child Injury Prevention, 2008 & Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
*These are interventions for which some studies have been conducted in low and middle income countries. Those in italics are from Cochrane Review post-2008.