2003 DEC 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Neighborhood speed bumps are popular with parents who want safer walking areas for their children, according to a new study.
Parents in four Baltimore neighborhoods chose speed bumps as the most effective method for preventing child pedestrian injuries, but also supported measures such as better traffic enforcement and trained crossing guards, said Andrea Carlson Gielen, ScD, ScM, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and colleagues writing in the American Journal of Health Education.
Many parents also said that they were willing to donate money for the speed bumps, volunteer as crossing guards and attend meetings on traffic and pedestrian safety. Parents who lived in high-risk neighborhoods were often the most likely to say that they would volunteer.
'They are optimistic that solutions can be implemented and are willing to be involved in getting changes made in their communities to protect child pedestrians,' Gielen said.
The researchers surveyed 723 parents or caregivers and interviewed smaller focus groups for four Baltimore neighborhoods of varying income and incidence of child pedestrian injuries.
More than 63% of the parents supported speed bumps as a way to prevent injuries. Half of those surveyed said that all the solutions offered in the study - from crossing guards to parent safety classes - would work well.
Parents who lived in neighborhoods that were both high-income and high-risk areas were significantly more likely to think that crossing guards and parent safety classes would work, according to the researchers.
Sixty-seven percent of the parents said they were willing to volunteer for crossing guard duty and 83% said they would donate money for a speed bump.
Eighty-eight percent said they would attend a meeting about traffic enforcement and 81% said they would go to a meeting about traffic safety for kids.
But parents had mixed opinions about the best way to make these changes, the researchers found. Parents had no significant preference as to whether letters to the mayor, city council and community meetings would be more effective.
Gielen and colleagues acknowledged that their survey may not be representative of all parents, since those most interested in the problem were probably more motivated to participate in the survey.
'But our results provide evidence that parents and other caregivers can be eager partners in the effort to reduce child pedestrian injury,' Gielen said.
The study was supported by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This article was prepared by Medical Letter on the CDC & FDA editors from staff and other reports.
