BKED 342-Children's Health, Safety, and Wellness: Research Resources

In response to these and other threats, different groups and government agencies in the United States have taken steps to advance a healthier and safer environment for young children. Some of these steps include creating an index for tracking childhood well-being (Foundation for Child Development, 2004), conducting a nationwide longitudinal study to better understand the threats to childhood health and well-being (National Children's Study, 2004), and establishing national health objectives to promote a healthier society (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000a). Early childhood teachers have a variety of health and safety resources to draw upon, including information about and educational programs dealing with such issues as fire safety (Cole, Crandall, & Kourofsky, 2004), obesity (Huettig, Sanborn, DiMarco, Popejoy, & Rich, 2004), and dental hygiene (Alkon & Boyer-Chu, 2004). In addition, early childhood teachers can take advantage of Internet resources and fact sheets provided by such organizations as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2004) and the National Safe Kids Campaign (2004a).

The purpose of this study is to compare the use of dental services for preschool aged children enrolled in North Carolina Medicaid, a traditional program based on a fee-for-service schedule, and North Carolina Health Choice (NCHC), an State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) dental insurance program structured similarly to private insurance.

The goal of this study was to track any changes in injuries and injury hazards during the first 3.5 years of implementation of the North Carolina Child Care Commission's 1996 playground safety regulations.

Injuries involving motor vehicles continue to be the biggest threat to the safety of children. Although child safety seats (CSS) have been established as a central countermeasure in decreasing injury risk, the majority of parents do not use the correct car seat correctly. There are many challenges in promoting correct car seat use, which itself is a complex behavior. To advance this critical protective behavior, the public health community would benefit from clarifying CSS messaging, communicating clearly, and addressing the conflicting recommendations of product use. In this article, we present current challenges in promoting CSS use and draw on health communication and other fields to offer recommendations for future work in this area.

OBJECTIVE. The goal was to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of an investigational, refrigerator-stable formulation of live attenuated influenza vaccine (cold-adapted influenza vaccine-trivalent) against culture-confirmed influenza, acute otitis media, and effectiveness outcomes in young children in day care over 2 consecutive influenza seasons. METHODS. Children 6 to <36 months of age who were attending day care were assigned randomly in year 1 to receive 2 doses of vaccine or placebo intranasally, 35 ± 7 days apart. In year 2, subjects received 1 dose of the same treatment as in year 1. RESULTS. A total of 1616 subjects (vaccine: 951 subjects; placebo: 665 subjects) in year 1 and 1090 subjects (vaccine: 640 subjects; placebo: 450 subjects) in year 2 were able to be evaluated for efficacy. The mean age at first vaccination was 23.4 ± 7.9 months. In year 1, the overall efficacy of the vaccine against influenza subtypes similar to the vaccine was 85.4%; efficacy was 91.8% against A/H1N1 and 72.6% against B. In year 2, the overall efficacy was 88.7%; efficacy was 90.0% against H1N1, 90.3% against A/H3N2, and 81.7% against B. Efficacy against all episodes of acute otitis media associated with culture-confirmed influenza was 90.6% in year 1 and 97.0% in year 2. Runny nose or nasal discharge after dose 1 in year 1 was the only reactogenicity event that was significantly more frequent with cold-adapted influenza vaccine-trivalent (82.3%) than placebo (75.4%). CONCLUSIONS. Cold-adapted influenza vaccine-trivalent was well tolerated and effective in preventing culture-confirmed influenza illness in children as young as 6 months of age who attended day care.