Home Safety Products Commonly Misused in Inner City Housing

More than 90 percent of injury deaths in infants and toddlers occurred in the home, according to data from the US National Vital Statistics System (1985-1997). Many residential injuries can be prevented using home safety products such as smoke alarms, stair gates, and cabinet locks.

According to a study conducted among low-income families in Baltimore entitled “Home Safety in Inner Cities: Prevalence and Feasibility of Home Safety-Product Use in Inner-City Housing,” mothers reported a higher use of home safety practices than observed by investigators. Although 98 percent of families reported having a working smoke alarm, home observations found over 55 percent of those alarms to be non-working. In addition, 71 percent of families reported storing medication in a locked cabinet, when home observation found that just 17 percent had locked medicine cabinets. The authors assert that the structural design of urban homes may be a significant barrier to home safety product use, and that researchers, manufacturers and legislators need to address injury-prevention issues unique to urban, low-income families. It is important for primary care physicians to ask if their safety recommendations are feasible in their patients’ homes, and for parents to notify physicians and manufacturers if safety supplies are unable to be used because of the design or condition of their homes.(Source: Pediatrics : American Academy of Pediatrics : August 2007)