In terms of overall child injury rates, Canada lags behind most OECD countries in tackling this problem. In addition—this is from Smartrisk—unintentional injuries cost Canada approximately $20 billion per year.
The great tragedy is that most of these injuries are predictable and preventable. Protection can be as easily afforded as wearing a properly fitted helmet and buckling up appropriately in a car. Our framework for injury prevention is the three E's, at least three: enforcement, engineering, and education. Enforcement includes rules, policies, laws, and regulations, which are important. Engineering includes vital safety devices, such as helmets, car seats, and safer built environments such as CSA-regulated play spaces. Education includes awareness, the self-care that my colleagues were talking about, but also awareness of what the risks are and how to best protect yourself. And that's for the caregivers for a child and also at the individual level.
The top 15 causes of fatal injuries for Canadian children and youth are largely preventable, and these include passenger injuries in motor vehicle crashes, choking and suffocation, drowning, pedestrian injuries, poisoning, and falls. Safe Kids may be telling you more about these.
All Canadian children and youth are at risk for injury. Children and youth at special risk include boys, aboriginal children, Inuit Canadians, and also those of lower socio-economic status. Children in remote and rural areas may be more at risk. This can be because of lack of access to injury prevention but also distance to care. An all-ages injury prevention strategy has been called for by ThinkFirst Canada and its partners for many years. Our partners in this effort include Smartrisk, Safe Communities Canada, and Safe Kids Canada. Together we are calling and will be continuing to call for a national strategy to address child and youth injuries and indeed injuries across the lifespan.
We really welcome the announcements from the last federal Speech from the Throne, when a prevention strategy for children and youth was announced. This led, of course, to active and safe initiatives, which we really appreciate. We also appreciate the funding of strategic teams for injury prevention research, including the STAIR grants--“strategic teams in applied injury research”. This has been an important milestone, but we have a lot further to go. We look forward to the realization and renewal of enforcement of Canada's product safety legislation, and we'd also like to see the new CSA standard for ski and snow helmets regulated.
Our vision is a Canada that enjoys the lowest rates of injury of any nation in the world. Right now, we're in about 22nd place out of 28 OECD countries, and that's cited in the Leitch report. We look forward to opportunities to lower the incidence of injuries. On a high level, that would be the three strategies: health literacy, including injury prevention; safer sports and recreation; and public policy for a safer Canada. We'd also like to see continued injury prevention and research and evaluation. One thing we've been calling for, for some time, is a national entity to address this problem. With increased resources and partnerships we look forward to an entity, Injury Canada, that can be a focus for these efforts. With funding levels more commensurate with the burden on society, we can better achieve our goals.
We see this entity taking a leadership role in coordination and collaboration, including researching injury prevention, taking a knowledge broker role, and developing strategies to encourage potential stakeholders to act.
We believe that a pan-Canadian strategy should adhere to the principles of keeping a societal focus and therefore should direct efforts to those who are in greatest need, including the social determinants of injury.
Thanks again for the opportunity to speak here today.