Stay Safe - A Safety Education Guide to Household Chemical Products for
Children 5 to 9 years of age
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B. Get Ready
Before you start, there is some information you may find interesting about unintentional injuries due to hazardous household chemical products. You will need to know who is most at risk of injury, what causes these injuries, when and where injuries occur and why they happen. With this information and the activities provided you will be well on your way to help Canadian children STAY SAFE.
Let's start with some facts to help give you a snapshot of childhood injuries in Canada.
1. Injury Facts
Our accomplishments …
Injury prevention efforts in Canada have resulted in dramatic declines in home injury deaths over the past 20 years. For example, we have seen a 50% reduction in deaths from unintentional injuries1 among children between 1970 and 19912. Between 1971 and 1975, Canada and the United States had similar levels of child injury deaths per 100,000 children aged 1-14 years (24.8 and 27.8 respectively) but by the 1990s, Canada had reduced its rate to 9.7 while the US "languished" at 14.13. Health Canada would like to think that our early work in developing requirements for hazard symbols and packaging made a difference in helping reduce unintentional injuries.
Our challenges …
- School-aged children begin to spend more time away from home during play and social activities, but they remain vulnerable to injuries because of their natural curiosity, sense of adventure and peer influences.
- Injuries at home for children between 5 and 9 years old remain high, but injuries sustained at other locations begin to increase. Some of these injuries include unintentional poisoning that occur in a location other than the child's own home.
- Children are more seriously affected by household chemical products than adults. With their smaller size and faster metabolism, breathing and heart rate, they tend to absorb or inhale chemicals more quickly.
- The majority of household chemical product injuries are poisonings by unintentional ingestion, while the second most common injuries are chemical burns from corrosive products.
- Demographics are related:
- deaths from all types of injuries at home are almost 40% higher among Canada's lower socio-economic families.
- aboriginal children have a rate of injury 4 to 7 times greater than the national average.
- boys have higher rates of injuries compared to girls and encounter more severe injuries. Research has shown that boys tend to engage in more aggressive play, and take more risks during play, thus contributing to the higher injury rates.
- admissions to hospitals for unintentional poisoning are almost twice as high among children from lower socio-economic families.
What we can do …
We can teach children and parents to STAY SAFE - to know the hazards commonly found in the home and what action to take. STAY SAFE targets household chemical products, teaching injury prevention through child and parent / caregiver awareness and action.
1 Unintentional injuries at home are caused primarily by fires, suffocation and choking, drownings, falls and poisonings.
2  http://www.health.gov.sk.ca/comp_health_indicators_rep/Section%202%20-%20Chapter%201%20and%20Chapter_%202.pdf - A Story About Health Status, ch.2.3 Unintentional Injury & Suicide
3  http://www.cmaj.ca/ - Canadian Medical Association Journal, Barbara Sibbald
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