Angela D. Mickalide, Ph.D, CHES
Director of Education and Outreach, Home Safety Council

National Prevention Summit
Washington, DC
October 27, 2006

(image: Home Safety Council logo)

The Home Safety Council (HSC) is the only national non-profit organization solely dedicated to preventing home related injuries that result in nearly 20,000 deaths and 21 million medical visits on average each year. Through national programs, partnerships and the support of volunteers, HSC educates people of all ages to be safer in and around their homes.

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(image: Home Safety Council logo)

Conducted the largest and most comprehensive study of injuries at home –
the State of Home Safety in America^TM

Each year, preventable injuries in the home:

• Result in nearly 20,000 deaths
• Cause nearly 21 million medical visits
• Are the fifth leading cause of death overall
• Are 2.5 times more likely to cause injury than car crashes
• Cost our nation up to $380 billion
• Cost employers up to $38 billion

(image: cover of "The State of Home Safety in America^TM" publication)

State of Home Safety in America^TM

Leading causes of home injury death

• Falls
• Poisoning
• Fires / Burns
• Choking
• Drowning

(image: excerpt from "The State of Home Safety in America^TM" report, featuring "Table 1.1. Unintentional Home Injury Deaths")

(image: Home Safety Council logo)

The Great Safety Adventure® (GSA) is in its eighth year of teaching the importance of home safety to children across the nation. The program has reached nearly one million participants!

GSA continues to be a favorite among elementary schools and Lowe's stores.

(image: photos of "The Great Safety Adventure" event)

2005

• 2005 attendance: 139,169
• 58 classes taught in Spanish
• 362 events in 32 markets
• 179 elementary school visits
• 77 Lowe's store visits
• 104 special event days
• 41.5 million media impressions
• 1,327 media placements
• 367 Spanish media placements

2006

• 2006 YTD attendance: 61,325
• 25 classes taught in Spanish
• 188 events in 16 markets
• 120 elementary school visits
• 42 Lowe's store events
• 26 special event days
• 16.46 million media impressions
• 1,762 media placements
• 698 Spanish media placements

(image: "The Great Safety Adventure" logo)

Great Safety Adventure Curriculum Kit
Includes the "Code Red Rover" video along with printed safety materials for schools and communities where the Great Safety Adventure was requested but unable to visit.

Reach: 1,880 schools and/or public health departments reaching 101,000+ children

(image: photo of Great Safety Adventure Curriculum Kit, CDC and Great Safety Adventure logos)

2005 Safety Ranger Program
"Safety Rangers Say No to Dangers" and "Code Red Rover, Grownup Come Over and video."
Addresses the top five home injury risks for children: falls, fires/burns, poisonings, choking/suffocation and drowning.

Reach: 131,223 teachers (print) and 95,000 teachers and parents (video)

(image: 2005 Safety Ranger Program partner logos)

2006 Safety Ranger Program
Disaster Preparedness Outreach
"Get Ready with Freddie" poster guide focuses on creating an emergency preparedness plan and "Ready-to-Go" and "Ready-to-Stay" kits.

Reach: 65,000 3rd and 4th grade teachers and 3,700 Expert Network members (6.7 million people)

Impact: 50% of teachers reported that their students made changes in family readiness

(image: 2006 Safety Ranger Program partner logos)

2006 Safety Ranger Program
Disaster Preparedness Outreach


NEW 8-page "Get Ready with Freddie" activity book and video sent in August 2006 to schools which did not receive the January 2006 poster guide.

Reach: 13,000 3rd & 4th grade teachers (1.4 million people); Operation Freddie fund-raising underway to deliver program to every school in the United States in January 2007.

2006 Disaster Preparedness Program
Lowe's Store Outreach Initiative
HSC distributed 64,000 copies of the "Get Ready with Freddie" DVD through Lowe's "Build and Grow" clinics on Saturday, October 7, 2006.

(image: 2006 Disaster Preparedness Program partner logos)

• Falls are the #1 cause of home injury deaths, especially for adults 65+.
• Promotes home modifications, medication tracking and physical activity
• Includes an educational video, wall poster and falls prevention activities
• Three-year study to evaluate effectiveness being conducted by UNC through CDC grant
• Reach: 11,000 older adult activity centers

(image: Home Safety Council Safe Steps flyer)

(image: Home Safety Council logo)

Using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential.

--National Assessment of Adult Literacy

Studies that have investigated the issue report that limited literacy skills are a stronger predictor of an individual's health status than age, income, employment status, education level, and racial or ethnic group.

Partnership for Clear Health Communications

• Adults with low literacy are considered at high-risk from fires as a result of several factors, including:
  • Their inability to read and understand current English-language community safety messages
  • Inability to read or comprehend product information, including instructions for using smoke alarms
    
    
• Most of the fire safety material in use by fire departments nationally are written at the 6th-11th grade reading level

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• Conducted by U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics
• Released December 2005
• Interviewed 19,714 participants ages 16 or older in homes and prisons across the United States

• Prose literacy: understanding continuous text arranged in sentences and paragraphs (e.g., news stories, brochures)
• Document literacy: comprehending noncontinuous text in various formats (e.g., job applications, payroll forms, bus schedules, maps, tables, food and drug labels)
• Quantitative literacy: identifying and performing computations (e.g., checkbooks, order forms, interest on loans)

• Below basic—ranges from being nonliterate in English to being able to do only the most simple and concrete tasks such as signing a form, adding the amounts on a bank deposit slip, or reading a short text to find out what a patent is allowed to drink before a medical test.
• Basic—ability to perform simple and everyday literacy activities such as using a TV guide to find out what programs are on at a specific time, comparing the ticket prices for two events, searching a pamphlet for prospective jurors to find out how people were selected for the jury pool.
• Intermediate—ability to perform moderately challenging literacy activities such as identifying a specific location on a map, consulting reference materials to determine which foods contain a particular vitamin, or calculating the total cost of ordering specific office supplies from a catalog
• Proficient—ability to perform more complex and challenging literacy activities such as comparing viewpoints in two editorials; interpreting a table about blood pressure, age, and physical activity; and computing and comparing the cost per ounce of food items

• 14% of the population (30 million adults) function at the lowest or Below Basic level on prose tasks
• 29% of the population (63 million adults) function at the second or Basic level on prose tasks
• 55% of the population (118 million adults) have only Basic or Below Basic quantitative skills

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• Low income
• Unemployed
• Elderly
• Did not finish high school
• Minority ethnic group
• Recent immigrant to United States who does not speak English
• Born in the United States but English is second language

2005-2006 Home Safety Literacy Project
HSC has established partnerships with ProLiteracy Worldwide and Oklahoma State University's Fire Protection Publications to research and develop new easy-to-read fire safety and disaster preparedness information for adults enrolled in literacy programs.

Reach: 9,000 (Phase I) and 15,000 (Phase II) adult literacy teachers and Expert Network members

(image: Home Safety Literacy Project partner logos)

• Provide high-quality, tested fire education instruction
• Provide deliberate and effective outreach
• Pair fire and literacy experts at the community level
• Ensure little or no impact on fire service or literacy provider budget or staffing

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Seven urban and rural areas of the U.S. conducted a pilot test of the Home Safety Literacy Project:

• San Bernardino, CA
• Washington, DC
• Palm Beach, FL
• Montgomery County, MD
• Poteau, OK
• Philadelphia, PA
• Plano, TX

(image: map of US with highlighted states)

• Literacy providers and fire service members from the seven pilot sites were trained in 2004 to implement and evaluate the project's instructional approach and specialized materials
• Results from pilot test were evaluated through an independent formative evaluation process immediately following the conclusion of the pilot/field test.
• Conclusion: focus on a few key messages and develop different materials for various reading levels

(image: photo of Home Safety Literacy Project Kit)

• Overview video and computer slide show
• Pictographs
• Readers – 2 levels
• Tabloid, "News for You"
• Posters
• Tearpads
• Pencils
• Community Leaders Guide
• Literacy Teachers Users Manual

• Installing and maintaining smoke alarms
• Creating and practicing a home fire escape plan
• Developing a communications plan for disasters
• Assembling "Ready-to-Go" and "Ready-to-Stay kits

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Fire Safety Teaching Aids

• Technically accurate
• Meet national literacy standards
• Highly Illustrated
• Easy to read
• Meet stringent national fire safety standards

• Home fire safety skills
• How to apply key fire protection measures in the home:
  • Installing and maintaining adequate smoke alarm protection
  • Emergency escape preparedness

(image: photo of fire safety instructors)

Fifteen urban and rural areas of the U.S. were selected to help the Home Safety Council conduct a summative evaluation of the Home Safety Literacy Project. An additional 15 communities served as control sites. Experimental sites included:

• Camp Verde, AZ
• Dekalb County, GA
• Wabash County, IN
• Columbus, MS
• Tunica, MS
• Hickory, NC
• Wilson, NC
• Rochester, NY
• Lima, OH
• Chambersburg, PA
• Westerly, RI
• College Station, TX
• Prince William County, VA
• Tacoma, WA
• Jamesville, WI

(image: map of US with Summative Evaluation Sites highlighted)

• Adult students who participated in the Home Safety Literacy Project learned more fire safety messages than adult students who did not participate in the project.
• A greater number and percent of adult students who participated in the Home Safety Literacy Project had smoke alarms installed in their homes than adult students who did not participate in the project.
• A greater number and percent of adult students who participated in the Home Safety Literacy Project created fire escape plans for their homes than adult students who did not participate in the project.

• Overcoming student reluctance to have firefighters come into their homes,
• Communicating with non-English speaking populations,
• Developing a schedule to install smoke alarms in the homes of adult students within the timeframe of a firefighter's work week, and
• Targeting an adult student population who actually needs smoke alarms installed in their homes.

2006-2007 Reaching Those Who Teach Project
HSC received $1 million from the DHS/FEMA for a third year of funding. Key components:

Survey of fire safety education in partnership with Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

New fire safety materials for preschoolers, elementary school students, middle schoolers, and older adults through Weekly Reader

Best practices in fire safety education conference in Washington, DC, January 10-12, 2007

(image: Adult Safety Outreach partner logos)

• Theme: Hands on Home Safety
• Sub-theme: Light it up, lock it up, test it
• Omnibus poll older adult safety by Harris—Safe Haven report
• Web activity: 185% increase over 2005
• Webinar: 80 participants
• Salute to Home Safety Awards Dinner
• Media: 140+ million impressions
• Materials: 30,000+ via e-store, Expert Network, corporations, safety groups

• HSC established the Expert Network to provide fire and life safety educators with reliable and effective home safety teaching tools.
• Nearly 4,000 members – 90% from local fire departments.
• Additional educators include nurses, public health educators, literacy teachers and community safety advocates.

(image: photo of family visiting fire fighters)

• Introduce and support health and safety legislation – Keeping Seniors Safe from Falls Act of 2006 with requested annual funding of $35 million
• Increase HSC's visibility on Capitol Hill and acknowledge Congressional support for HSC's mission – Leadership awards to Senators Burr and Specter and Representatives Davis and Andrews

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• Partner with federal and non-governmental agencies – Affiliation with DHS's Citizen Corps which reaches 72% of the US population
• Secure funding - $50,000 earmark for development of GSA curriculum kit through CDC
• Participate in targeted coalition efforts – Campaign for Public Health (495) and Falls Free Coalition (65+)

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• Home Security Week (July)
• Garage Safety Week (August)
• Falls Safety Month (September)
• National Preparedness Month (September)
• Fire Safety Month (October)
• Ladder Safety Week (November)

• Two Silver Anvil Awards from the Public Relations Society of America (Home Safety Month 2005 and BRG's year-round media efforts)
• Institute for Health Literacy Award for Innovative Health Literacy Program (Home Safety Literacy Project)
• DC Chapter of the American Marketing Association (Great Safety Adventure)
• CFSI/Motorola Mason Lankford Fire Service Leadership Award (Meri-K Appy)
• Sprinkler Advocate of the Year (Meri-K Appy)

Please contact:

Angela Mickalide, Ph.D., CHES
Director of Education and Outreach
Home Safety Council
1250 Eye St., NW, Ste. 1000
Washington, DC 20005
202-330-4907
Angela.mickalide@homesafetycouncil.org
www.homesafetycouncil.org