Unintentional injury prevention survey.

This meeting followed the 5th International Conference on Injury Prevention and Control in New Delhi. It was jointly organized by the Malaysian Pediatric Association and the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention. Despite " conference fatigue " , the seminar attracted (and retained for one full day) over 40 delegates. It included a series of excellent presentations and a lively debate. Dinesh Mohan provided a challenging start with a paper on " Issues in Child Injury Prevention ". He invited the audience to consider the influence of culture on child safety, asserting that, " culture in the public and political domain is only used for purposes of oppression, not for liberation ". Mohan believes that all people value life in the same way, and that views that some societies accept death or serious injuries more fatalistically, are not supported by evidence. The poorest families in society can be destroyed economically by one catastrophic health event or accident. The theme of " culture " was woven through the subsequent presentations. Anuradha Bose and Jim Nixon presented case studies of drowning from India and Australia. Drowning as a cause of injury death in rural India was evident. Low cost, intermediate technology solutions to this problem included thorn barriers rather than expensive walls around large open wells, the use of inner tubes from tyres for children learning to swim, programmes to encourage children not to swim alone, and to call for help if other children were in danger in the water. The Australian experience of changing public attitudes to pool fencing was described by Jim Nixon, notably the time it took to accomplish this: 10 years. This juxtaposition of presentations illustrated the irony of open water; in India it is a hazard faced by the poor, whereas in Australia, childhood drowning is associated with increasing aZuence. A second theme was violence. Rosa Gofin reviewed a broad framework of risk factors and opportunities for violence prevention Anuradha Bose (presenting a paper for Abra-ham Joseph) stimulated a debate about the problems of female infanticide in India and other southeast Asian countries. The issue of children and work was illustrated by Krishnamurthy Nagaraja in his presentation. " Safely Earn a Little While you Learn " is a project taking place in one school in Bangalore, India. Many underprivileged children miss out on schooling because wages from work are needed to help support their families. …