In North Carolina, more than 215,000 children attend regulated North Carolina child care centers or child care homes. Several serious injuries, including one death, on North Carolina child care center playgrounds resulted in new playground safety regulations being implemented. We reviewed and analyzed all state-mandated reports (n=5,402) of medically-attended injuries in regulated child care settings in North Carolina during the period January 1, 1997 through June 30, 2000. Statewide enrollment counts were used to estimate monthly, seasonal, and annual injury rates. In North Carolina child care centers cuts and scrapes are the most frequent type of injury, the head and neck are the most frequently injured body parts, playgrounds are the most frequent injury site, and being hit by or bumping against an object is the most frequent proximate cause of injury. The epidemiology of injury in child care homes is very similar. A linear regression analysis of monthly injury rates confirms that there has been a significant decline (p < .01) in the rate of injuries in regulated North Carolina child care centers between January of 1997 and June of 2000. See none
Learning Objectives: Participant will be able to 1. Describe a state-wide method of collecting incident reports of medically-attended injury in out of home child care 2. Understand the strengths and limitations of an evaluation of the impact on child injury of statewide regulation of child care playground safety.
Keywords: Child Care, Injury
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: State of NC medically attended injury incident reporting system.
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.