Establishing a safe community program: a qualitative systematic literature review

Accidents are a leading cause of preventable deaths in many countries around the world. Non-fatal but disabling health consequences account for a significant portion of the injury and harm resulting from accidents. The concept of a Safe Community has been introduced to systematically enhance community safety. This study aims to explore the characteristics of implementing a Safe Community program in different countries.

This study involves a qualitative systematic literature review of existing research and documents related to the Safe Community program and the designation of safe communities. Qualitative and non-statistical methods were employed to synthesize, assess, and interpret the findings. Data was collected from English databases (PubMed, Scopus, Embase, Web of Sciences, and Google Scholar) until the end of 2022. Content analysis was used to integrate the findings, and a coding technique was applied to categorize the data based on content, process, and evaluation.

Following data extraction, 46 articles were identified for qualitative analysis. We grouped the process of establishment into three main categories and several subcategories based on the content, process, and evaluation of safe community programs. Stakeholders of the Safe Community program were classified into government, private, international, and non-governmental stakeholders. Additionally, we identified five groups of challenges: economic, infrastructural, informational, political, and supervisory.

In general, the characteristics of establishing a safe community are similar across different countries; however, specific initiatives have been tailored for each region based on the local community's conditions.