Child protection. Accident prevention: a community approach.

Child accidents are the main cause of death and a considerable cause of morbidity in children, as well as anxiety to adults. Attempts to tackle this major health problem have tended to rely on campaigns of education and exhortation; public health strategies remain underdeveloped. Health visitors are well placed to pursue child safety strategies which build on parents' own knowledge and experience. Helen Roberts describes an initiative based not on the question, why did that accident happen? but the more intriguing question of how is it that most parents manage to keep their children safe most of the time and what can we learn from them?