Abstract
Due to its rapid economic development, China is facing a huge health, social, and economic burden resulting from injuries.
The study’s objective was to examine Safe Communities in China as a strategy for injury prevention and safety promotion programmes
in the era of rapid economic growth. Literature searches in English and Chinese, which included grey literature, were performed
on the Chinese Journal Full-text Search System and Medline, using the words “Safe Community”, “injury”, “economics”, and “prevention”.
The results showed that the existing 35 recognized members of the International Safe Community Network have not placed due
emphasis on suicide prevention, which is one of the leading problems in both rural and urban China. A few groups, such as
children, the elderly, cyclists, and pedestrians, have received due emphasis, while other vulnerable groups, such as migrant
workers, motorcyclists, students, players, and farmers have not received the necessary attention from the Safe Community perspective.
As the evidence describes, Safe Communities in China can be a very effective strategy for injury prevention, but four aspects
need to be strengthened in the future: (1) establish and strengthen the policy and regulations in terms of injury prevention
at the national level; (2) create a system to involve professional organizations and personnel in projects; (3) consider the
economic development status of different parts of China; and (4) intentional injury prevention should receive greater attention.
The study’s objective was to examine Safe Communities in China as a strategy for injury prevention and safety promotion programmes
in the era of rapid economic growth. Literature searches in English and Chinese, which included grey literature, were performed
on the Chinese Journal Full-text Search System and Medline, using the words “Safe Community”, “injury”, “economics”, and “prevention”.
The results showed that the existing 35 recognized members of the International Safe Community Network have not placed due
emphasis on suicide prevention, which is one of the leading problems in both rural and urban China. A few groups, such as
children, the elderly, cyclists, and pedestrians, have received due emphasis, while other vulnerable groups, such as migrant
workers, motorcyclists, students, players, and farmers have not received the necessary attention from the Safe Community perspective.
As the evidence describes, Safe Communities in China can be a very effective strategy for injury prevention, but four aspects
need to be strengthened in the future: (1) establish and strengthen the policy and regulations in terms of injury prevention
at the national level; (2) create a system to involve professional organizations and personnel in projects; (3) consider the
economic development status of different parts of China; and (4) intentional injury prevention should receive greater attention.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Review
- Pages 1-10
- DOI 10.1007/s10900-012-9594-4
- Authors
- Shu-Mei Wang, School of Public Health, Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety, Ministry of Education, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
- Koustuv Dalal, School of Health and Medical Science, Department of Public Health Science, Örebro University, 701 82 Orebro, Sweden
- Journal Journal of Community Health
- Online ISSN 1573-3610
- Print ISSN 0094-5145