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Business partners and their commitment to child safety:
Johnson and Johnson - Europe, Middle East and Africa
Children’s health is a natural area of focus for Johnson and Johnson - Europe, Middle East and Africa with interests in baby-care products and first aid as well as pharmaceuticals and surgical equipment.
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RAM
RAM Consulting is world's leading safety consultancy company. That position reflects the success in ensuring the safety of client’s products and the integrity of their corporate image and brand.
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Consumer Safety Institute
The Consumer Safety Institute (CSI), established in 1983, is an agency with a mission to improve the safety of consumers and cut the toll of home and leisure injuries in the Netherlands.
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The aim is to reduce the large number of serious injuries and the many deaths caused by them. This is done by increasing society’s awareness of the issue, by publicising good practice in injury prevention and by helping citizens and professional groups to create a safer environment for us all.
The Consumer Safety Institute in Amsterdam hosts the secretariat of the European Child Safety Alliance.
The Consumer Safety Institute, Amsterdam
Project partners and their commitment to child safety
European Commission
The mission of the EU “Health and Consumer Protection” is to implement the responsibilities entrusted to it by the Treaty and derived legislation so as to ensure that a high level of human health and consumer protection is attained throughout the EU.
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World health Organisation
Injuries - an environmental health threat for children
Injuries are a major threat to children’s health with a strong environmental component. Globally, the WHO recognises accidents and injuries such as drowning, burns, traffic accidents and poisoning to be among the most important environmental causes of death and disability for children world-wide.
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According to the Global Burden of Disease estimates, this burden will further increase over the next decades. In the European Region there is an enormous variation in rates of injuries across countries, with a huge gap between east and west. Highest rates were found in the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union, where mortality exceeds by more than eight times the rates reported by best performing countries in Western Europe. Out of 10 child deaths, 3 to 4 occur as a consequence of injury. The effects of injuries go beyond the already dramatic burden of death and disability. The fear of accidents can influence life-styles, and have in turn indirect negative effects on children’s health. For example, the freedom of children to meet their mobility needs by walking or cycling is being restricted by parents out of fears of traffic accidents. As a result, children are more sedentary, and their risk of becoming overweight or obese, and/or of developing serious diseases such as diabetes increases dramatically.
The major concerns posed by injuries need to be addressed using a broad range of tools, which include effective implementation of appropriate policies and regulations to improve safety standards, measures to raise awareness and promote safer behaviours of families, caretakers, teachers and children, and measures to introduce structural changes in the environment and in sectoral policies. Where needed, this may require re-designing and re-thinking these as a function of the needs of children and of their specific vulnerabilities. For example, strategies to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries should include structural changes in infrastructures, driving behaviour and speeds that do take into account the slow reaction time, reduced vision and ability to judge speeds, and low conspicuity of children, along with their unpredictable behaviour. Furthermore, the responsibility for injury prevention in children should be seen as a shared one, where relevant sectors of the economy, and different departments of administrations are accountable for children’s safety, along with parents and educators. While this is already happening in some sectors of the economy, the same approach needs to be further expanded.
The protection of children from environmental health threats is based on international agreements designed to ensure that children grow up and live in an environment that is conducive to the highest attainable level of health. The Declaration of the III. European Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health held in June 1999, identifies the implementation of public health interventions to reduce accidents and injuries as one of the four priority areas to protect children’s environmental health. In addition, the 4th Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health, which took place in Budapest in 2004, focused on “The Future For Our Children”, providing another important political platform at the pan-European level to promote action, including aspects related to children’s safety. Accordingly, WHO is engaged in setting the prevention of injuries in childhood high on the policy agenda, and in promoting inter-sectoral action, as exemplified by the approach taken in the field of Transport, Health and Environment. To build awareness, assess and monitor progress throughout the European Region a core set of environmental indicators is being developed by WHO in collaboration with other international agencies. Mortality and morbidity rates due to road accidents, burns, falls and poisoning and drowning are among the proposed indicators. A combined indicator assessing the policy implementation has been proposed. Rates will have to be analysed further by socio-economical status and geographical area to identify high-risk groups and to stress the need for focused policies and interventions.
WHO Regional Office for Europe, European Center for Environment and Health, Rome, Italy
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