On 12 June 2012, in the European Parliament, MEP Malcolm Harbour, Chair of the Internal Market and Consumers Protection Committee, and John Dalli, European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy launched, in conjunction with the European Child Safety Alliance, Child Safety Report Cards for 31 countries, and a European summary. The Report Cards score countries on their level of adoption, implementation and enforcement of over 100 proven strategies and policies to prevent unintentional injury—good practices that are known to save children’s lives. This multi-country assessment provides thoughts for similar actions in other countries worldwide.
This is the third round of Child Safety Report Cards to be released by the European Child Safety Alliance, with 18 countries participating in 2007, 26 in 2009 and now 31 in 2012. A trend analysis for countries participating in both 2007 and 2012 found significant improvements in overall country scores over the 5 years. Encouragingly, some of…