For more than 12 years, Safe Kids Northeast Florida has been keeping kids safe by finding creative solutions to reach families with the information they need most. One example is their medication safety program. 

Poison Prevention Week is March 15 – 21, and Safe Kids is releasing new research, “Medicine Safety for Children: An In-Depth Look at Calls to Poison Centers,” to explore medicine safety for children. In partnership with the American Association of Poison Control Centers, and with support from McNeil Consumer Healthcare, we analyzed more than 547,000 calls to poison centers to better understand what types of medicines little kids and teens are getting into and how it happens.

We talk a lot about safe storage and the importance of keeping medicine up and away, out of reach of children. And that’s important: In 67 percent of emergency room visits for medicine poisoning, the medicine was left within reach of a child, such as in a purse, on a counter or dresser or on the ground.

What is equally important, though, is safe dosing.