Safe Sleep

Jennifer E. McCain, MD
Lorrie Lynn, MA, CPSTI
Shelby Crespi, MPH, CPST

What's Known, What’s New and What’s Needed in Injury Prevention

Lorrie Lynn, MA, CPSTI
Rohit P. Shenoi, MD
Keisha Fraser Doh, MD
Ashley Blanchard, MD, MS

This session will highlight the work of our esteemed colleagues in a myriad of injury prevention topics including firearms, drowning, sleep related injuries, suicide, and youth with autism spectrum disorder. The panelists will highlight new trends in epidemiology and intervention strategies. They will further identify gaps in their fields and describe potential solutions to improve future injury prevention efforts.

1. Describe existing disparities in drowning burden and access to drowning countermeasures.
2. Formulate an injury prevention framework to address pediatric drowning.
3. Understand existing burden of SUID, current trends and best practice recommendations.
4. Describe existing disparities in firearm injuries.
5. Formulate an injury prevention framework to address firearm injuries.
6. Understand the trends of injury among children with autism and their unique injury risk and available interventions.

First Responder Outreach Project: Prevention through education and resources

Lorrie Lynn, MA, CPSTI

Young children are particularly vulnerable to unintentional injury and death. The unintentional death of infants from suffocation or sudden infant death syndrome continues to be the leading cause of injury and death for infants under one-year of age. According to the County of San Diego - Health and Human Services Agency, nine infant deaths due to suffocation were recorded between 2017 to 2019. From 2017-2020 Emergency Room data from Rady Children’s Hospital -San Diego recorded suffocation as a mechanism of injury for eight infants. For children ages 1 to 4 years old, drowning is the leading cause of injury and death. The majority occur in swimming pools. During the pandemic, when families were in lockdown, most children who experienced a drowning incident were in backyard swimming pools. Falls are the leading cause of hospitalizations for children in this age group. During the pandemic lockdown, window falls increased dramatically to 55 in 11 months. Typically, Rady Children’s Hospital trauma department sees three fall victims a month. Thirty-eight percent of all trauma cases were falls with 42% of the total victims being children 1-3 years old. In 2022, the trauma department received seventy-nine victims of second story falls.

To address home safety for children we created the First Responder Outreach Program. Based on the Cribs for Kids National Public Safety Initiative, we created the First Responder Outreach Project. To develop and evaluate the feasibility we partnered with Chula Vista Fire Department (CHFD). Chula Vista is a rapidly changing city in the San Diego region. This city is our first responder participants will be culturally competent to address these culturally diverse, economically disadvantaged communities. Our First Responder Outreach project trains Emergency Personnel to target areas of concern, using simple messages and providing access to needed safety resources. These resources (Safe Sleep Survival Kits, water safety Books, window locks, home safety strategy flyers, information about car seat inspections, etc.) are made available at local sites or delivered to the family to ensure quick solutions to identified safe sleep environmental education and needs. Our project targeted four of the leading causes of unintentional injury for children 5 years and younger. Working with the CVFD and EMS we developed and implemented a train-the-trainer model, with resources provided by a grant, and a tracking system.

Held the first train-the-trainer meeting in January 2023. Developed a tracking system for materials to be shared with families. Trained 160 first responders using the method designed in collaboration with the Chula Vista Fires Department Educators. Families have received a selection of the available materials, with one family receiving all safety resources. The First responder Outreach program also led to a Child Passenger Technician training. This has increased the number of car seats inspections, twice each month.

Injuries and deaths occurring in the home are preventable. Through the first responder partnership with Chula Vista, we will be able to assess the effectiveness of this approach and reduce the number of families at risk for child injury.

1. Plan and implement a sustainable home safety assessment project
2. Build a collaboration with first responders
3. Institute a train-the-trainer model and tracking system to evaluate program effectiveness