Child Injury: The Role of Supervision in Prevention

Abstract

As the leading cause of death and major contributor to hospitalization for children, unintentional injury is a significant health problem in the United States. How supervision influences children’s risk of injury has been of interest for some time, and much progress has been made recently to address definitional and measurement issues pertaining to supervision. Increasing evidence supports the notion of a general relationship between increased supervision and decreased injury risk, but also reveals that child behavioral attributes and environmental characteristics can interact with level of supervision to affect injury risk, making it challenging to develop guidelines regarding what constitutes “adequate” supervision. Further research is needed to explore if and how children’s risk of injury varies with different supervisors (eg, mothers vs fathers vs older siblings) and how these relations change as a function of children’s developmental level. Recent research has identified messaging approaches that are effective to invoke a commitment to more closely supervising young children at home. Examining how these messages affect actual supervisory practices is an essential next step in this research and can support the development of evidence-based programs to improve supervision and reduce children’s risk of injuries.