The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #72345

Jim Carlisle, Injury Prevention Services, Allentown Health Bureau, 435 Hamilton Street, Allentown, PA 18101-1699 and Adenike Bitto, MD, DrPH, MPH, CHES, ESU, P.O. Box 155, East Stroudsburg, PA 18301, (570)422-3375, abitto@po-box.esu.edu.

In recent times, fire-related injuries have been increasing in the City of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Kitchen and candle fires are frequently identified as the cause. Older housing stock, inner city location, low income, ethnicity, and renters are frequently identified in the fire incident records. In order to educate early elementary school children, the Allentown Fire Department uses the Fire Safety House (FSH) to teach fire safety. The FSH is a mobile trailer which has fire education features including a door that heats up, 911training telephone, fire hazard props and an artificial smoke machine for children to practice crawling low under smoke. The Allentown Fire Department, the Allentown Health Bureau, and the Burn Prevention Foundation partnered to develop a pre-test/post-test instrument for first graders to be administered prior to and within 3 days after the FSH educational program. First graders were chosen because they had no previous exposure to the program. Since first graders could not read in October of the school year when the program was held, each question had 3 picture choices for the student to circle one. The teacher read the 10 questions. The pre-test and post-test were identical instruments. Over 200 students from four schools participated. Comparing aggregate numbers of pre-test and post- test results, there was a 10% increase in scores. Although there were slight variations by school and grade level, overall these young participant's knowledge of fire safety did improve.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of the session, the participant in this session will be able to:
• Recognize the public health benefits of educating young children on fire safety using the Fire Safety House.
• Describe and apply an educational safety program for children using the Fire Safety House.
• Articulate methods and procedures for evaluating childrens' learning using a pre- and post-test instrument.

Keywords: Child Health Promotion, Environmental Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
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.