Recent trends in accident prevention.

761 LTHOUGH pediatricians have always been concerned, as individuals, with the problem of child safety, the intense interest of the American Academy of Pediatrics in accident prevention dates back only to 1950. At that time, the spectacular conquest of the common childhood diseases during the previous three decades had forced a remarkable drop in the mortality rate from disease, whereas, in sharp contrast, the decrease in the accident death rate had remained alarmingly slow-in fact, almost static (Figs. 1 and 2). This has focused attention and renewed emphasis on the still formidable problem of accidents, aptly described by Dietrich as childhood’s greatest killer.’ Then, as now, accidents were the leading cause of death among children 1 to 14 years of age, accounting for fully onethird of all deaths at the elementary-school ages, and causing untold crippling, suffering and disability (Table I).