New York City’s window guard policy: four decades of success

Toprani, Amita; Robinson, M.P.H. William A.; Middleton, James K; Hamade, Ali; Merrill, Thomas G.

doi:10.1136/injuryprev-2017-042649

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Falls from heights and buildings more broadly are the leading cause for major traumas in children, but the specific focus of this review was on neurosurgical injuries caused by falls from windows as this has been identified as the most frequent fall-related incident by several studies across the globe [ 9 , 15 , 16 ]. This high frequency of occurrence has led to the establishment of several successful campaigns and programs over the years that aimed mainly at raising awareness regarding relevant risks and dangers, and revising safety policies for windows of residential and commercial buildings [ 17 ]. “Children can’t fly” and “Kids can’t fly” were two of the most successful of such programmes, managing to reduce incidents of falls from windows by 96% for children under the age of five, within their first 10 years of implementation in New York and Boston respectively [ 3 , 8 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Secure windows for child safety: a retrospective study of window falls in children, aiming to raise prevention awareness

et al. 2023

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Purpose The aim of the study is to enhance understanding, raise awareness and inform prevention programmes regarding potential factors that lead to severe paediatric injuries caused by unintentional falls from windows. Methods This is a retrospective review from a major Trauma Centre, covering the majority of North West England and North Wales and included children under the age of 16 that had sustained falls from windows and were hospitalised between April 2015 and June 2020. Results Overall, 825 patients’ records have been reviewed, 39% of which exhibited neurosurgical injuries (322 admissions). The most common cause of injury was falls (42%), out of which 19% was identified as falls from windows which was eventually the core focus of this review (25 patients). The records showed that 72% of the falls were not witnessed by another individual, suggesting that children were being left unattended. Average GCS recorded at presentation was 11.2 and 56% of cases were identified as severe major traumas. With a mean stay of 2.2 days in ICU, 1.6 days in HDU and 6 days in the neurosurgical clinic, average treatment costs per patient were £4,493, £651 and £4,156 respectively. Finally, 52% of patients were identified to require long-term physiotherapy/occupational therapy due to permanent disabilities, 20% long-term antiepileptic treatment for seizures and 44% long-term psychological services input. Conclusion This study presents our experience at a major tertiary trauma centre in the UK over a 5-year period, from a paediatric neurosurgical injuries perspective due to fall from windows. We aim to raise awareness and highlight the importance of establishing prevention programmes which would hopefully decrease the incidence of paediatric window falls.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Secure windows for child safety: a retrospective study of window falls in children, aiming to raise prevention awareness

et al. 2023

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“…Head injuries are the most common injury sustained in these falls 7 , which we also found to be true in our cohorts. These injuries and fatalities are preventable, and window guards have been adopted as part of the Health Code in cities such as New York with significant decrease in annual fatal and non-fatal falls from windows 8 , 9 . However, the efficacy of interventions aimed at reducing pediatric falls from windows have been poorly studied and variable results have been reported 10 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unintended Consequences of COVID-19 on Pediatric Falls From Windows: A Multicenter Study

Theodorou¹,

Brown²,

Jackson³

et al. 2022

Journal of Surgical Research

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“…These key features reflect the ways in which communities are strengthening systems to drive population-level impact on injury and related health outcomes, rather than striving for fidelity to specific evidence-based programmes. Leonardo et al 11 describe a quality improvement model for building state public health capacity to test, implement and spread change ideas for reducing childhood injury and death, and Toprani et al 12 explain how a pilot injury prevention programme grew to absorb other system impacts (eg, building codes, home inspections, policy change, surveillance and civil liability) and resulted in significant injury reduction.…”

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confidence: 99%