A National Child Safety Report released today shows that injury is the leading cause of death and disability for children and adolescents aged 0-19 years in Europe.

Injuries were responsible for 14% of all child and adolescent deaths in Malta in 2010, with unintentional injury accounting for about one out of every 22 deaths from all causes in males and one out of every 7 deaths from all causes in females in this age group.

The National Child Safety Report Cards for 31 countries were released during a European press launch event in Strasbourg at the European Parliament by MEP Malcolm Harbour, Commissioner Dalli and EU Danish Presidency Representative.

These Report Cards examine and grade the adoption, implementation and enforcement of child injury prevention policies at national level for participating countries as part of an EU funded project, the TACTICS project. Project leader for this initiative in Malta is the Environmental Health Policy Co-ordination Unit of the Environmental Health Directorate. The Child Safety Report Cards were awarded the European Health Award from the European Health Forum Gastein in 2011.

A European Summary Report Card (2012), summarising these issues and grading all participant countries, was also released today. No country received a grade of excellent, indicating room for improvement in all countries. Malta, together with fifteen other countries, received an overall grade of good performance.

The Child Safety Country Profiles highlight the burden of child and adolescent injury and examine socio-demographic determinants to provide a starting point for interpreting the results of the Child Safety Report Cards and for measuring progress toward reducing child and adolescent injury-related death and disability. When compared to the 31 participating countries, in 2010 Malta had the lowest child and adolescent all injury mortality rates for males and ranked 9th for females.

As in other EU countries, Malta has a greater uptake of transport related policies than those related to water safety and the prevention of home injuries. Efforts are needed to enhance the adoption; implementation and enforcement of policies to reduce drowning, falls, burns and scalds, poisonings and choking and recommendations addressing these issues are proposed.

A multi-sectoral approach (e.g., working with health, transport, environment, education) becomes important to facilitate efforts at reducing child injuries. In these times of reduced resources it is wise to look for solutions that provide co-benefits to other issues in addition to injury prevention. For example, strengthening road safety infrastructure to increase the safety of child pedestrians and cyclists can encourage increased physical activity, which in turn can help address childhood obesity. Strategic investment in child and adolescent injury prevention will ensure a coordinated and evidence-based approach to protecting Malta’s most precious resource – its children and adolescents.

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