Parents’ reports of home and out‐of‐home injuries among children attending child care centers

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Abstract
Parents of 371 children up to 30 months of age in full time care in 24 child care centers were telephoned to ascertain the number and severity of child injuries occurring both at home and in child care. In addition injury incident reports were collected from six centers. Almost equal numbers of injuries were reported to have occurred at home and in child care. The rate of parent‐reported child care injuries was 52 per 100,000 child hours. Only 25 of the 149 separate child care injury events resulted in a medical visit, a rate of 8.8 per 100,000 child hours. Careful matching of center‐reported events with those reported by parents revealed very little overlap. The discrepancy was only partly explained by parental notification of child care injuries by centers. More deliberate attention to the communication of information about injury events occurring in child care is indicated if child care injuries are to be prevented.