Child restraint safety practices among Arab children in Israel.
OBJECTIVE
Because the rate of injury and mortality from car crashes among Arab children is higher than among Jewish children in Israel, this study assesses the patterns of age-appropriate child restraint system (CRS) use in Arab towns in Israel.


METHODS
From October 2010 to September 2011, 4396 children ages 0 to 14 were observed while seated in vehicles in 9 Arab towns and villages in Israel.


RESULTS
Among infants aged 0 to 1 year old, 31.2 percent were observed in an age-appropriate restraint, whereas among children aged 1 to 4 years, only 12.4 percent were age-appropriately restrained. Children aged 5 to 9 were observed to have the lowest levels of age-appropriate restraint use (1.3%). The variation between the various villages was large and dependent on the age of the child.


CONCLUSIONS
The low rates of CRS use may explain to some degree the high rates of injury and mortality of Arab children in car crashes. These low rates indicate that previous interventions have not been successful in increasing restraint use in the Arab community in Israel and there is a need to plan targeted interventions specifically for this population. Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Traffic Injury Prevention to view the supplemental file.
School of Public Health, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. ornaepel@research.haifa.ac.il
Orna
O
Baron-Epel
Avi
A
Magid
Shiran
S
Bord
Naseem
N
Assi
Michal
M
Klein
Sharon
S
Levi
D000293:Adolescent; D018912:Arabs; D002648:Child; D057207:Child Restraint Systems / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007557:Israel