title: A wicked problem: early childhood safety in the dynamic, interactive environment of home.
abstract: Young children being injured at home is a perennial problem. When parents of young children and family workers discussed what influenced parents' perceptions and responses to child injury risk at home, both "upstream" and "downstream" causal factors were identified. Among the former, complex and interactive facets of society and contemporary living emerged as potentially critical features. The "wicked problems" model arose from the need to find resolutions for complex problems in multidimensional environments and it proved a useful analogy for child injury. Designing dynamic strategies to provide resolutions to childhood injury, may address our over-dependence on 'tame solutions' that only deal with physical cause-and-effect relationships and which cannot address the complex interactive contexts in which young children are often injured.
authors.affiliation: Injury Prevention Research Unit, Department of Preventive & Social Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand. jean.simpson@otago.ac.nz
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Simpson
authors.forename: Geoff
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fougere
authors.forename: Rob
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: McGee
mesh_terms: D000061:Accidents, Home; D000328:Adult; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006282:Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009520:New Zealand; D010290:Parents; D018570:Risk Assessment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology