UNICEF Cuba supports meeting on the prevention of unintentional injuries to children and adolescents

Havana, March 26 – UNICEF Cuba joined the Ministry of Public Health and the Maternal and Child Care Program at a meeting on the prevention of unintentional injuries, held at the Juan Manuel Márquez Pediatric Hospital.

With the participation of 105 healthcare professionals, pediatricians from all of Havana’s municipalities and Primary Healthcare personnel, the meeting advocated for health promotion and caring for children at home.

Some of the topics discussed at the event were the strategy of prevention at home, the characteristics and importance of the guide for the conduction of medical home visits, the evaluation to consider a home safe, as well as the social communication strategy for the prevention and control of unintentional injuries to children and adolescents.

In the Americas, six children or adolescents under 20 years of age die every hour, mainly due to unintentional injuries caused by traffic, drowning and suffocation, acknowledged the World Health Organization in their 2008 world report on prevention of injuries to children. In Cuba, these injuries are the number one cause of death in these ages.

In its 74/299 resolution, the United Nations General Assembly declared a Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, with the goal of reducing traffic-related deaths and trauma by at least 50% in that period.

While speaking at the event, Dr. Milagros Santacruz Domínguez, coordinator of the Program and of the National Commission for the Prevention of Unintentional Injuries to People under 20, highlighted the importance of family supervision as a protection factor against child injuries, especially against those occurring at home and in playgrounds. She also emphasized that injuries at home predominate among children under 5, due to their longer periods remaining in the house and their vulnerability.

On the other hand, she highlighted the goals of the Health Social Communication Strategy, which include increasing risk perception in the population for the prevention of unintentional injuries to children, adolescents and young people through information, education and communication actions, with a multi-sector and popular participation approach. In this sense, she specifically stressed that accidents are not that accidental and can be prevented.

The Strategy includes different actions, such as increasing educational actions in schools and nursery schools, and in the “Educate Your Son” program; identifying learning needs by age groups, territories and more frequent types of injuries, their causes and epidemiological characteristics, which may allow the definition of educational objectives in the short, mid and long term. Likewise, it is focused on the design and validation of educational materials that may be socialized on traditional media, as well as on the digital platforms.