A study of safety-promoting activities for children and adolescents in 25 Swedish municipalities.

The purpose of this study was to investigate two elements of the community approach to safety promotion for children and adolescents. The first concerns whether there is any correlation between safety-promoting activities in different municipal settings, and the second whether socio-economic and demographic characteristics affect the level of safety-promoting activities. A cross-sectional study was performed comprising 25 municipalities in Stockholm County. The extent of safety-promoting activities was studied in four settings: the municipal setting in general, the traffic setting, the pre-school setting, and the school and leisure activity setting. Data on nine demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the municipalities were collected from public statistics. There were three main findings. First, safety-promoting activities in the municipal setting in general, the pre-school setting, and the school and leisure activity setting, but not in the traffic setting, were apparently associated with total municipal safety-promoting activities. Secondly, socio-economic characteristics, measured as the proportion of adults with >12 years of education, did not predict the extent of safety-promoting activities. Finally, growing municipalities with a large proportion of children reported fewer safety-promoting activities than non-growing municipalities. This study demonstrated weak correlations between safety-promoting activities in different municipal settings. The finding that growing municipalities have fewer safety-promoting activities provides pertinent lessons for future action and research. The study offers a method by which it may be possible to better assess the complex components of the community approach to safety promotion.