It is not commonly known that car-crash tragedies strike African-American youth far more often than their distribution in the overall population would suggest, but that is the sad fact. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for African-Americans up to 14 years of age, and the second leading cause of death for African-Americans between 15 and 24 years of age. Even more shocking, African-American children suffer three times the incidence rates compared with other children in the United States. To address this health disparity, Buckle up for Life was created by trauma specialists at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and funded through a grant from Toyota. The program is designed to educate both African-American and Hispanic families -- whose children are also more likely to be victims -- on the importance of keeping their families safe while driving.
“We were seeing a disproportionate number of African-American and Hispanic children coming into the hospital with severe crash-related injuries and we knew we had to do something about it,” says Dr. Rebeccah L. Brown, associate director of trauma services at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
Buckle up for Life meets African-Americans in their communities, delivering information in a faith-based setting. To date, Toyota, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles have joined together with three local African-American churches to deliver safety and prevention education to participants. Building on the program’s initial success in Cincinnati and Los Angeles, Toyota announced in June that it has committed $1 million to launch the program in Chicago, Denver and San Antonio later this year and in 2012.
“What we saw when we began Buckle up for Life in Greater Cincinnati was that, after participating in the program, the number of adults and children using seat belts and car seats more than doubled,” says Pat Pineda, Toyota’s group vice president of national philanthropy. “When we saw those results, we knew we had found a successful and sustainable model that was meeting the pressing needs of the community.”
The congregations of the three participating churches have devoted weeks of Sunday school classes and sermons to learning about critical safety behaviors. At the closing events, dozens of volunteers from Toyota African-American Collaborative joined with their expert partners from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles to help educate participants on child passenger safety and injury prevention through free car-seat inspections, safety demonstrations and informational booths. Families who did not previously own a car seat for children were given one, compliments of the program. Festivities also included live music, food, giveaways, and arts and crafts for the children.
“Injury and death due to vehicle-related injuries is preventable,” says Dr. Jeffery S. Upperman, director of trauma at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “If we can save just one child’s life, all of our efforts have been worth it.”
