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Here are just two examples of how CDC’s work in injury
prevention makes American lives safer.
Protecting Children from
Abuse and Neglect
Fact:
Each year, more than 800,000 American children are abused or
neglected.
About 1,100 of these children die as a result.
Action:
CDC is unique in studying child maltreatment in relationship with
other forms of violence:
youth violence, suicide, intimate partner violence, and sexual
assault.
In
confronting child maltreatment CDC is:
- Improving
systems to acquire and track information about child maltreatment and
child fatalities.
States differ widely in how they define causes of death.
In it’s injury prevention work, CDC is developing and testing
common definitions so that states can accurately record information
about child deaths.
This is the first step in assessing the true magnitude of this
problem in the United States.
- Conducting
research to better understand the causes and consequences of child
neglect.
Neglect comprises more than half of known child maltreatment
case and the
full extent of the child maltreatment problem in this country is not
known.
- Working
to shift the burden for preventing child maltreatment from the child
to the perpetrator.
CDC believes that intervening with individuals, families and
the communities in which they live is the key to preventing violence.
Programs and policies that provide counseling for batterers or improve
parenting skills, for example, intervene with perpetrators and
potential perpetrators before the violence occurs.
- Working
with different cultural groups to identify social norms and beliefs
that
support of violence and then find ways to alter or replace them
with ones that prevent violence. Even when such behaviors are not
considered “acceptable,” cultural attitudes and beliefs may
continue the cycle by blaming victims or by
creating social atmospheres that tolerate child maltreatment
and other forms of violence.
Eliminating Death From Residential Fires
Fact:
Almost half of residential fires—and three fifths of fire
deaths—occur in homes with no working smoke alarms. And the direct
property damage from these fires amounts to some $5 billion annually.
Action:
Looking to
quell this terrible human and economic toll, CDC is teaming with the U.S.
Fire Administration and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to
issue a national challenge to eliminate deaths from residential fires by
2020.
CDC:
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Funded
a program in 30 high-risk communities in 14 states to install smoke
alarms and conduct fire safety education. From 1998 to 2001, program
staff installed more than 116,000 smoke alarms – saving
approximately 340 lives.
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Found
even when smoke alarms were present, they often didn’t work.
CDC funded a small business research project which developed a
smoke alarm with a long-lasting lithium -powered battery and hush
button so that homes are adequately protected for a longer period by a
functional alarm
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Partnered
with the National Fire Protection Association to create “Remembering
When” to prevent death and injury from fires and falls among the
fastest-growing segment of Americans, older adults.
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