Racial and Ethnic Differences in Injury Prevention Behaviors Among Caregivers of Infants.
African American and Latino children experience higher rates of traumatic injury and mortality, but the extent to which parents of different races and ethnicities disparately enact injury prevention behaviors has not been fully characterized. The objective of this study is to evaluate the association between caregiver race/ethnicity and adherence to injury prevention recommendations.



This was a cross-sectional analysis of caregiver-reported baseline data from the Greenlight study, a cluster-randomized pediatric obesity prevention trial. Data were collected between 2010 and 2012 in four academic pediatric practices and analyzed in 2015. Non-adherence to injury prevention recommendations was based on five domains: car seat safety, sleeping safety, fire safety, hot water safety, and fall prevention.



Among 864 caregiver-infant pairs (17.7% white, non-Hispanic; 49.9% Hispanic; 27.7% black, non-Hispanic; 4.7 % other, non-Hispanic), mean number of non-adherent injury prevention behaviors was 1.8 (SD=0.9). In adjusted regression, Hispanic caregivers had higher odds of non-adherence to car seat safety (AOR=2.1, 95% CI=1.2, 3.8), and lower odds of non-adherence with fall prevention (AOR=0.4, 95% CI=0.3, 0.7) compared with whites. Black, non-Hispanic caregivers had higher odds of non-adherence to car seat safety (AOR=2.4, 95% CI=1.3, 4.4) and sleeping safety (AOR=2.1, 95% CI=1.3, 3.2), but lower odds of fall prevention non-adherence (AOR=0.5, 95% CI=0.3, 0.8) compared with whites.



A high prevalence of non-adherence to recommended injury prevention behaviors is common across racial/ethnic categories for caregivers of infants among a diverse sample of families from low-SES backgrounds.
Center for Health Services Research, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee; Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee. Electronic address: bill.heerman@vanderbilt.edu.
William J
WJ
Heerman
Department of Pediatrics, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Eliana M
EM
Perrin
Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.
Lee M
LM
Sanders
Departments of Pediatrics and Population Health, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York.
H Shonna
HS
Yin
Department of Pediatrics, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Tamera
T
Coyne-Beasley
Center for Health Services Research, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee.
Andrea B
AB
Bronaugh
Center for Health Services Research, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee; Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee.
Shari L
SL
Barkin
Center for Health Services Research, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee; Department of Internal Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee.
Russell L
RL
Rothman
D000328:Adult; D017028:Caregivers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009034:Mother-Child Relations / Q000208:ethnology*; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000517:prevention & control*; D055815:Young Adult