Blog Post

For too long, global road safety has not received the priority it deserves, especially when it comes to the needs of children. Not only are children at high risk in vehicles, on bicycles, and in some countries on motorcycles, they are vulnerable as pedestrians and are often injured or killed in the simple act of walking to school.

The Safe Kids Day signature event took place on April 26, 2015 at the Lot in West Hollywood.More than 500 parents and kids enjoyed a fabulous, fun-filled celebration all afternoon. Check out some photos from the event.

We celebrated Safe Kids Day today with a fabulous, fun-filled event in Los Angeles. More than 500 parents and kids boogied on the dance floor, scrambled through the obstacle course and took pictures with Lassie as we joined together to celebrate kids, prevent injuries and save lives.

Heatstroke is a condition that occurs when the body isn’t able to cool itself quickly enough and the body temperature rises to dangerous levels. Children are at great risk for heatstroke because a child’s body heats up three to five times faster than an adult’s. When the internal body temperature reaches 104 degrees, children’s organs start to shut down. And when it reaches 107 degrees, the child can die.

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.

One of my favorite parts of my job is talking with the EMTs, nurses, doctors, and other public health professionals who have recently become Child Passenger Safety Technicians. Their faces light up when they describe the feeling of wearing the CPST “hat” and working with colleagues and families in their communities. They appreciate the value of spending a little extra time assisting families to make sure car seats are used and installed correctly and that everyone is buckled up, every ride every time.

Safe Kids Worldwide is participating in Global Road Safety Week and working hard to ensure that the voices of kids, parents and teachers will be heard. You can join this campaign to #SaveKidsLives  by taking a few small steps to make a big difference. 

With people still talking about the Nationwide Super Bowl ad that brought dramatic attention to the number one killer of kids, preventable injuries, we’re releasing new research that reveals the scope of the problem in a place most parents assume is safe: the home. Every day, six children die from an injury in the home, and 10,000 go to the emergency department for the kinds of injuries that commonly happen in homes.

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.