Community Benefit Efforts Center for Childhood Injury Prevention
While the injury rate for children under age 18 has decreased more than 40% in the last two decades, pediatric injuries still kill or harm more children over age 1 than all childhood diseases combined.
Traumatic injuries are the leading cause of death in children 18 years old and younger in the United States. In 2023, more than 1850 injured children were admitted to Texas Children’s Hospital and many more were treated in the Emergency Center.
Texas Children’s Hospital created the Center for Childhood Injury Prevention (CCIP) to tackle this issue in the greater Houston community through strategic community partnerships and evidence-based best practice recommendations.
The Safe at Home Program focuses on reducing injuries and death that happen most commonly in the home. The Safe at Home program focuses on safe sleep for infants, childproofing and home safety education, as well as drowning prevention efforts.
Child Passenger Safety Programming: Through a grant from the Texas Department of Transportation, CCIP staff works year-round to prevent injuries and fatalities sustained in motor vehicle crashes when children are improperly restrained.
The staff educates parents and caregivers on how to correctly restrain their children, provides car seats and boosters to children in low-income communities as funding allows, trains and mentors local technicians, and manages a large network of over 20 community Inspection Station sites.
Safe Kids Greater Houston: The Center for Childhood Injury Prevention has served as the lead organization for Safe Kids Greater Houston, a Coalition of health and safety experts, law enforcement, community advocates and other volunteers. The Coalition’s mission is to address major areas of unintentional injuries to children in our local area.
This is accomplished by raising awareness among adults and children, providing lifesaving education and resources, and making childhood injury a public priority. The major risk areas addressed are Child Passenger Safety, Safe Sleep, Water Safety, Home Safety and Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety.
Injury Free Coalition for Kids(IFCK): The Center for Childhood Injury Prevention is one of two local IFCK sites. IFCK is comprised of over 40 Trauma centers with hospital-based, community-oriented programs whose efforts are anchored in research, education and advocacy.
Community impact 2024
- Educated 1,460 children on pedestrian safety and distributed reflective materials to increase visibility for child pedestrians
- Provided over 700 water safety educational materials to Houston area parents and pediatricians
- Inspected 3,183 car seats and distributed 1,285 new car seats to children in need
- Trained approximately 50 new Child Passenger Safety Technicians annually. These technicians trained throughout the community, return to their organizations and provide car seat education and installation assistance.
- Educated 30,744 parents and caregivers through the distribution of child passenger safety educational material
- Provided 500 bicycle helmets to low-income children through community partnerships and bike rodeos
- Educated more than 1,000 people on home safety topics, including safe sleep and childproofing tips
- Raised broad awareness of child safety issues through more than 50 media interviews (bilingual) and social media engagement
The work of the Center for Childhood Injury Prevention could not be accomplished without our many valuable partners that work to make the Greater Houston area safer for children.