Purpose: Children between the ages of 5 to 8 years are at risk for pedestrian, motor vehicle, bicycle, stranger, and animal bite injuries. Safety Street was developed to educate children in this age group about safe behaviors using didactic teaching and practical training in a mobile three dimensional Safety Street. The study’s goal is to demonstrate the efficacy of this method on improving knowledge in these safety areas. Methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted on kindergarten through second grade children from St. Louis region schools. Students were tested using a previously validated testing method. Intervention school children were tested 1 week prior to the Safety Street program arrival, one month later, and 4–6 six months later. Control school children were tested 4–6 months prior to Safety Streets arrival, one-month later, and right before Safety Street’s arrival. Summary of results: There are 371 control subjects and 369 intervention subjects who took test 1 and test 2, with a mean age of 6.4 and 6.8 years respectively. The control school subjects were 47% male (and 53% female) and the intervention school subjects were 53% male (and 47% female). Overall, intervention subjects increased 12% (10.9, 12.6) on test scores compared to an increase of 5% (10.2, 10.7) in the control subjects (p<0.001). This difference was also observed when stratified by grade (p<0.001). For those students who took test 3 (6 mos. after test 2), there were 342 control subjects and 96 intervention subjects. Overall, the difference between test 1 and test 3 for the intervention subjects was 9.3% (11.3, 12.6) compared to an increase of 5% (10.2,10.9) in the control subjects (p<0.001). This difference was also observed when stratified by grade (p<0.001). The greatest improvement was shown in kindergarten children and mean scores increased with age. Conclusion: Using a validated testing method, we were able to demonstrate that the Safety Street program is an effective means of transmitting knowledge about pedestrian, bicycle, animal, and passenger safety to children between the ages of 5 to 8 years. The increase in knowledge is retained after 4 to 6 months. (Author/publisher)
Abstract