Accidental Injury of Chinese Children: Priorities and Actions

In China, there are more than 200 million children at present, which is the nation with largest amount of children in the world. The severity of accidental injury among children in China shall be noticed. Accidental injury among children is an important global public health problem. At present, it has become the first killer of children in the world and the main health problem, which threatens life and survival qualities of children. In China, there are about 10 million children injured by all kinds of accidents every year, among them there are 100 thousand children died and 400 thousand children crippled because of accidental injuries (1). Drowning, traffic accident, falling off, animal bite and burns are main reasons of accidental injury death among children at the age of 1 to 14. The drowning death rate of Chinese children is 8.77 per 100 thousand, among them children at the age of 1 to 14 accounts for 56.58% (1). There are more than 18500 children under the age of 14 died of road traffic accidents in China every year, and the death rate caused by traffic accidents is 2 times higher than Europe and 2.6 times higher than America (2). Accidental injuries among children make complete families become fragmented, which not only create heavy social burdens and economic losses, but also influence the psychological and physical development of children who are crippled by accidental injuries, then lead to serious psychological and developmental disorder of children. Additionally, the following four points should be given high priority and put into practice as soon as possible. Firstly, laws, regulations, and policy measures that protect children from all kinds of accidental injuries shall be made and perfected actively. Secondly, the nation needs to establish a cooperative mechanism, which is participated by multi-sectors together to prevent and control accidental injuries among children. Preventing and controlling accidental injuries among children is not a simple health prevention or medical problem, it is a comprehensive social system engineering, which involves the cooperation of multi-disciplines and participation of multi-sectors, and it can achieve good results with the support and cooperation of governments and related departments. Thirdly, the nation needs to establish regular accident record and report system of accidental injuries among children to understand and grasp the situation of accidental injuries among children accurately, which provides bases for making decisions of the nation. At last, we need to learn and absorb foreign successful experiences on preventing and controlling accidental injuries among children and explore an effective intervening mode which is suit for China’s national condition, thus to improve health levels and life qualities of Chinese children continually.