Injury prevention in an urban setting: challenges and successes

The Harlem Hospital Injury Prevention Program (HHIPP) was established in 1988 with the goal of reducing injuries to children in central Harlem by providing safe play areas, supervised activities, and injury prevention education. To achieve this goal, a broad-based coalition was formed with state and local governmental agencies interested in injury prevention and with community groups, schools, parents, and hospital staff. An evaluation of the program in terms of both process and outcome formed a critical element of this effort. Since 1988 the HHIPP, as the lead agency for the Healthy Neighborhoods/Safe Kids Coalition, developed or participated in two types of programs: injury-prevention education programs and programs that provide safe activities and/or environments for children. The educational programs included Window Guards campaign; Safety City Program; Kids, Injuries and Street Smarts Program (KISS); Burn Prevention Curriculum and Smoke Detector Distribution; Harlem Alternative to Violence Program; Adolescent Outreach Program; and Critical Incident Stress Management Teams. The safe activities and environmental programs included the Bicycle Safety Program/Urban Youth Bike Corps; Playground Injury Prevention Program; the Greening of Harlem Program; the Harlem Horizon Art Studio; Harlem Hospital Dance Clinic; Unity through Murals project; baseball at the Harlem Little League; winter baseball clinic; and the soccer league. Each program was conceived using injury data, coupled with parental concern and activism, which acted as catalysts to create a community coalition to respond to a specific problem. Data systems developed over time, which monitored the prevalence and incidence of childhood injuries in northern Manhattan, including central Harlem, became essential not only to identify specific types of childhood injuries in this community but also to evaluate these programs for the prevention of injuries in children.