Injuries involving motor vehicles continue to be the biggest threat to the safety of children. Although child safety seats (CSS) have been established as a central countermeasure in decreasing injury risk, the majority of parents do not use the correct car seat correctly. There are many challenges in promoting correct car seat use, which itself is a complex behavior. To advance this critical protective behavior, the public health community would benefit from clarifying CSS messaging, communicating clearly, and addressing the conflicting recommendations of product use. In this article, we present current challenges in promoting CSS use and draw on health communication and other fields to offer recommendations for future work in this area.

Background and ObjectivesIncreasing grandparent-grandchild interactions have not been targeted as a potential contributing factor to the recent surge in pediatric poisonings. We hypothesized that in grandparents with a young grandchild, a single educational intervention based on the PROTECT “Up & Away” campaign will improve safe medication knowledge and storage at follow-up from baseline.MethodsThis prospective cohort study validated the educational intervention and survey via cognitive debriefing followed by evaluation of the educational intervention in increasing safe medication storage. Participants had to read and speak English and have annual contact with one grandchild ≤ 5-years-old. Participants were recruited from a convenience sample of employees in a regional healthcare system. They completed a pre-intervention survey querying baseline demographics, poisoning prevention knowledge, and medication storage, followed by the educational intervention and post-intervention survey. Participants completed a delayed post-intervention survey 50–90 days later assessing medication storage and poisoning prevention knowledge. Storage sites were classified as safe or unsafe a priori; a panel classified handwritten responses.Results120 participants were enrolled; 95 (79%) completed the delayed post-intervention survey. Participants were predominantly female (93%) and white (76%); 50% had a clinical degree. Participants averaged 1.9 grandchildren. Initially, 23% of participants reported safe medication storage; this improved to 48% after the intervention (OR 6.4; 95% CI = 2.5–21.0). 78% of participants made at least one improvement in their medication storage after the intervention even if they did not meet all criteria for safe storage. Participants also demonstrated retention of poisoning prevention knowledge.ConclusionsThis brief educational intervention improved safe medication storage and poisoning prevention knowledge in grandparents of young children; further evaluation of this intervention is warranted.

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While controlled trials are important for determining the efficacy of public health programs, implementation studies are critical to guide the translation of efficacious programs to general practice. To implement an evidence-based injury prevention program and examine program use and completion rates in two implementation phases, Safe N′ Sound, an evidence-based program, was implemented in five pediatric clinics. Data on program use were collected from program files and patient census data. Program use averaged 12.1% of eligible patients during implementation and 9.5% during the continuation phase. Program completion averaged 9.7% and 6.5%, respectively. Findings from this study can inform the dissemination of evidence-based public health programs, particularly in practice-based clinical settings.

A kiosk-based tailored injury assessment tool can be successfully integrated into a busy pediatric practice. Unintentional injury outcomes can be linked to the tailored anticipatory guidance and can identify the effectiveness of this electronic integration of injury prevention messaging into well-child examinations.