Lara Beth McKenzie*, Center for Injury Research and Policy, Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, United States Kristin J Roberts, Center for Injury Research and Policy, Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, United States Track: Research Presentation Topic: Mobile & Tablet Health Applications Presentation Type: Poster presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Last modified: 2014-06-16

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Background: Injuries affect everyone—especially young children. Injuries are the leading cause of death for children ages 19 and younger. Each year, nearly 9 million children aged 0 to 19 years are seen in emergency departments for injuries, and more than 9,000 children die as a result of their injuries. Known effective countermeasures exist, but are not routinely utilized. Known effective countermeasures and safety devices are readily available, but not routinely utilized by parents of young children. Safety products, when properly installed, can reduce or prevent the consequences of injuries. Unfortunately the evidence is that many families do not consistently or properly use safety products and practice safety behaviors. Efforts to influence the adoption and continued use of safety practices among families is a key factor in preventing child injuries. Existing child safety efforts are not centralized or easily accessible by parents. The current process for “child proofing” your home is difficult, time consuming, requiring multiple trips to stores, visits to multiple websites, and parent blogs, because there is no centralized and authoritative information available to parents on how to achieve a safe home and which products are most-suited to their homes and families.

Objective: Development of a home safety application (app) and corresponding website to help parents identify injury hazards “room-by-room” to make their homes safe. The app allows parents to select and purchase safety products (such as stair gates, cabinet locks, smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, etc.) that are best-suited to the features of their homes and provides tips for proper installation as well as reminders for correct and consistent use of these products.

Methods/Results: The app will be tested among a group of parents of young children. Data on user preferences and functionality of the app will be presented as well as data on number of hazards identified, learning modules completed and products purchased and installed.