Dr. Dan Hale Presents for Boston Children's Hospital Community Educational Summit - Read the Take Home Points!

Posted on July 31, 2025

Dan Hale gave a presentation for the Boston Children's Hospital community educational summit in April. Many pediatricians from New England attended including several from Maine. Dan’s presentation was titled “Childhood safety: what’s new in 2025!” and reviewed updated technology and research safety advances for some of the most common causes of pediatric fatalities: firearms, drownings, and house fires.

It is important to weave prevention efforts into health care points of contact including well child visits, acute care contacts, and hospitalizations.

Some of the take home points are listed here.

Water safety:
There are about 4000 drownings a year in the United States, 900 in children.

Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional injury–related death in U.S. children 1 through 4 years of age.

Drowning is the third leading cause of unintentional injury–related death among US children and adolescents 5 through 19 years of age.

While there is not much new technology to prevent drownings, more information is available for research and injury prevention analysis.

The Haddon Matrix is a tool used to analyze injury events and develop prevention strategies. This method looks at a time frame of injury prevention based on the individual for pre-event, event, and post event.

Some of the most impactful methods for preventing drowning include swim lessons, life jackets when boating and some other situations, no substance use when swimming or boating, and close supervision of all children including swimming in areas with lifeguards.

There is a helpful 2021 AAP policy statement on Prevention of Drowning. Link is: https://publications.aap.org/p...

House fires:
Time is of the essence for fire safety. Most fire deaths occur within 5 minutes of a structure fire starting, so it is essential to evacuate the building before the fire department arrives.

An advance safety plan is crucial for human behavior because there is not enough time to think through options at the time of fire. Fire safety plans include prompt exit from the home when smoke or fire is sighted or the alarms are going off, and knowing two ways of exit from each room.

New technology for fire safety includes voice alert smoke alarms that help children understand instructions, interconnected smoke alarms (when one alarm goes off all alarms go off), and easy to use upstairs bedroom evacuation ladders.

Firearms:
Pediatric firearm related deaths are now more common than motor vehicle collision deaths.

The US Surgeon General Dr. Murthy declared gun violence a public health crisis in 2020.

About 40% of households have a firearm.

There is technology in place to help with restricted use and securing firearms including several types of homeowner gun locks and gun safes. These even include biometric locking devices now. There is potential future technology for further biometric locking and tracking of firearms.

The key areas pediatricians help with firearm deaths and injuries are:

Education: Offer anticipatory guidance on safer firearm storage and lethal means counseling. Support or create violence prevention programs in medical, school and community settings.

Advocacy: Greater firearm availability is associated with increased risks of firearm suicide and unintentional deaths in youth 0 to 24 years of age. Support legislation for firearm safety programs. Encourage policies to support data and research funding.

There is a helpful 2022 AAP policy statement on Firearm-Related Injuries and Deaths in Children and Youth: Injury Prevention and Harm Reduction.

Link is:
https://publications.aap.org/p...

References:
Pediatrics (2021) 148 (2): e2021052227. From the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Link is:
https://publications.aap.org/p...

Pediatrics (2022) 150 (6): e2022060070. From the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Link is:
https://publications.aap.org/p...

Dan Hale is a pediatric hospitalist at Mass General Brigham for Children and resides in Kittery, Maine