Risk for household safety hazards: Socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors

Many unintentional injuries to young children occur in the home. The current study examines the relation between family socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors and risk factors for home injury.

Presence of household hazards was examined in 80 families with toddler-aged children. Parental ability to identify household hazards in pictures was also assessed. ANOVAs and Pearson product-moment correlations examined the relationship between presence of household hazards, knowledge to identify hazards, and factors of yearly family income, parental age, parental education, parental marital status, child ethnicity, and the number of children living in the home.

A greater number of hazards were found in the homes of both the lowest and highest income families, but poorer knowledge to identify household hazards was found only among parents of the lowest income families and younger parents. Across family socioeconomic status, parent knowledge of hazards was related to observed household hazards.

The relationship between family income and risk for injury is complex, and children of both lower and higher SES families may be at risk for injury.

While historically particular focus has been placed on risk for injury among children in low income families, injury prevention efforts should target reducing presence of household hazards in both high and low SES families.