Providing healthy and safe homes and reducing injuries are included in our nation's public health objectives. Access to safety products and knowledge about injury prevention, as well as substandard neighborhood conditions are significant barriers to child safety faced by resource poor communities. This proposal is a revision of one submitted in May, 2006. We seek to prevent injuries in East Baltimore by building on ongoing community work: a) Johns Hopkins CARES (Children ARE Safe) mobile resource center;b) Baltimore City Fire Department neighborhood sweeps;c) Center for Community Health community health worker outreach program;and d) Environmental Justice Board academic-community partnership. We will demonstrate the impact of neighborhood sweeps, the mobile safety center, and community health workers (CHWs) on safety and health. During sweeps, fire inspectors go door-to-door providing free smoke alarms, identifying fire and safety hazards in the home and in the neighborhood, and reporting hazards for remediation. We will enhance these sweeps by working with CHWs and making the CARES mobile safety center available. The center is a 40-foot vehicle with fun, interactive educational exhibits, which will offer families additional low cost safety products. We will compare communities receiving these enhanced sweeps to communities that receive the fire departments standard sweeps. The evaluation design includes surveying randomly selected households in the randomly assigned participating communities before the sweeps begin and after they conclude. We will also enroll cohorts of families at the time of the door-to-door sweeps to collect baseline and follow -up data. We will supplement self-reported data on safety knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors with observations of home and neighborhood fire and safety hazards and data on emergency department visits. We will use qualitative research methods to assess the roles and impacts of the partners on development of the study, implementation of the proposed interventions, and dissemination of results. Results will be widely disseminated by our community partner organizations and through the scholarly literature. Results will contribute new knowledge about reducing health disparities in injury and the utility of community partnerships for promoting home for children and families living in low income, urban environments.

Public Health Relevance

This project involves a community partnership to promote fire and life safety among low income urban families. We will use door to door canvassing by fire department personnel and community health workers along with a mobile safety center. The evaluation will examine the impact of the program on safety knowledge, behaviors, and children's injury risk. We will also identify how best to work with community partners to implement child safety programs.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD059216-02
Application #
7681735
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-HOP-S (52))
Program Officer
Haverkos, Lynne
Project Start
2008-09-01
Project End
2013-06-30
Budget Start
2009-07-01
Budget End
2010-06-30
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2009
Total Cost
$635,360
Indirect Cost
Name
Johns Hopkins University
Department
Public Health & Prev Medicine
Type
Schools of Public Health
DUNS #
001910777
City
Baltimore
State
MD
Country
United States
Zip Code
21218
Debinski, Beata; McDonald, Eileen; Frattaroli, Shannon et al. (2017) Predictors of Participation in a Fire Department Community Canvassing Program. J Burn Care Res 38:225-229
Perry, Elise C; Shields, Wendy C; O'Brocki, Raymond et al. (2015) Examining fire department injury data as a tool for epidemiological investigation. J Burn Care Res 36:310-4
Gielen, Andrea C; Perry, Elise C; Shields, Wendy C et al. (2014) Changes in smoke alarm coverage following two fire department home visiting programs: what predicts success? Inj Epidemiol 1:30
Shields, Wendy C; McDonald, Eileen; Frattaroli, Shannon et al. (2013) Still too hot: examination of water temperature and water heater characteristics 24 years after manufacturers adopt voluntary temperature setting. J Burn Care Res 34:281-7
Shields, Wendy C; Perry, Elise C; Szanton, Sarah L et al. (2013) Knowledge and injury prevention practices in homes of older adults. Geriatr Nurs 34:19-24
Gielen, Andrea C; Shields, Wendy; Frattaroli, Shannon et al. (2013) Enhancing fire department home visiting programs: results of a community intervention trial. J Burn Care Res 34:e250-6
McDonald, Eileen M; Gielen, Andrea C; Shields, Wendy C et al. (2013) Residential carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning risks: correlates of observed CO alarm use in urban households. J Environ Health 76:26-32
Parker, E M; Gielen, A C; McDonald, E M et al. (2013) Fire and scald burn risks in urban communities: who is at risk and what do they believe about home safety? Health Educ Res 28:599-611
Shields, Wendy C; McDonald, Eileen M; McKenzie, Lara et al. (2013) Using the pediatric emergency department to deliver tailored safety messages: results of a randomized controlled trial. Pediatr Emerg Care 29:628-34
Schachterle, Stephen E; Bishai, David; Shields, Wendy et al. (2012) Proximity to vacant buildings is associated with increased fire risk in Baltimore, Maryland, homes. Inj Prev 18:98-102

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