Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you today. I represent AUTO21, Canada's network of centres of excellence team of researchers that focus on the automotive sector.
I am a nurse by training. I bring today to my comments background as a pediatric critical care nurse. I spent a number of years looking after critically ill children, 50% of whom are admitted to our ICUs--only very few of those actually survive--as a result of severe road crashes.
I currently lead a national team of researchers that includes not only academia--members from computer science, business, engineering, nursing and medicine--but also engages private sector partners and public sector partners to leverage both their experience and technologies in this area of injury prevention.
As you've just heard from Pam Fuselli, road crashes are the leading cause of death of children in Canada and are a substantial threat to children globally. In Canada alone we lose approximately three classrooms-full of children every year who will not see grade six because of road crashes.
As you have also just heard, we have a substantial number of very severe injuries in the neighbourhood of about 11,000 annually. Most of those injuries are lifelong, including head, neck, and spinal cord, so prevention could play a significant role if we were able to achieve that.
If today I was able to get every child in this country correctly seated in a car seat, we would be able to reduce the child deaths in our country by 74% and reduce the severe injuries by 67%. Once again, a prevention strategy has tremendous value if we're able to achieve that.
In Canada, the majority of parents I work with and have researched do attempt to keep their children safe in vehicles--about 85% of us. The sad story is that about 15% to 20% do so accurately enough so those children can benefit from protective strategies such as car seats. Some 75% of the children in the most recent Transport Canada data who died in road crashes were actually wearing seat belts.
The issue is not that we're not attempting to keep our children safe: it's the accuracy and the correct strategy for keeping them safe that is so important.
My most recent national child seat survey, which I conducted with Transport Canada, was in 2006, and I will be conducting it again this summer, in 2010. We had only 19% of children ages four to eight using booster seats in the back seats of our vehicles--the lowest and clearly the highest-risk group. We do have legislation for booster seats in five Canadian provinces at the moment. However, the impact of that legislation has not achieved the numbers of children correctly seated in that age group that we would like to see.
The question is what we can do about it? Let me share some of the lessons we have learned and the achievements I think we have been able to contribute. Education programs are--no question--important, for children particularly and the entire family. Mothers tend to be the most knowledgeable member of a family to keep children safe in vehicles, but we also engage children in our education as well, because they're a very important influence in families. We do not have a national strategy--as was already pointed out by my colleague at Safe Kids--around the education and awareness issue for these families, which I think would benefit them.
With regard to parent information, when I talk to parents in Canada, I ask them where they seek information, because it is important to try to help them find correct information. They tell me two things. They look at the pictures on the box and they go to speak with their family friends.
We've actually engaged our colleagues in computer science to use artificial intelligence technology. We've created a virtual community that is able to demonstrate the very important influence of social networks. Families tend to learn from other families, so influencing our social networks is a very important strategy that I don't believe is unique to Canada, but in fact I think perhaps could allow Canada to play an important role worldwide.
You also have to look at the impact of culture. Families do practice particular health behaviours based on cultural beliefs. We have done some studies with new Canadians in our country that suggest that there are cultural values in place. The role of the mother as protector often leads to the family's decision to actually hold their child on their knee rather than safely seat them in a vehicle in a car seat.
So again, the use of artificial intelligence has been important in helping me map and helping us conceptualize how we need to shift from just straight education materials for families, to actually social marketing, which we have done, by engaging our business school colleagues who have expertise in that.
The lessons learned, I think, can be very valuable in moving forward to a more global agenda. I won't review the number of statistics shared with you already, except to say that injury is a growing health concern, as identified by the World Health Organization. Low-income and middle-income countries particularly spend more than they receive in international aid on the outcomes of injury. So if we're able to help them prevent injury through a multi-sector and a multi-disciplined approach, we would actually be supporting them globally, I believe, in meeting some of their other needs for aid.
On networks of key stakeholders, I can't say enough about how important that lesson has been in terms of engaging key stakeholders on the ground, the people in communities who help us understand the influence of those social networks so that we can help them transmit information, knowledge, and awareness on keeping children safe in vehicles through a network approach.
National coordination, I believe, has already been identified by my colleague as a very important strategy. We have lots of data, lots of strategies, and lots of educational tools, but if we can't get them to every family in Canada, we cannot achieve the reduction in the mortality and severe injury rates that are so very high in this country, and are growing in other countries.
The rates of road crashes are expected to climb from being the ninth-leading cause of death to the fifth-leading cause of death worldwide by 2030. WHO suggests a multi-sector approach. It has also been my experience with the multi-sector approach that it is very important having families, community members, and key stakeholders from different parts of the public sector and private sector bringing technologies and different approaches to the table, in addition to researchers and academia.
I believe Canada has the ability and the capacity to achieve global leadership in the area of coordinating efforts across sectors by engaging key stakeholders; leveraging technologies like information technologies to measure and monitor our outcomes and the impacts of various initiatives worldwide; and engaging private sector, government, and academic partnerships to build the capacity we need for child health in the area of injury prevention and to start to reduce this growing challenge that we have with injury rates that have such lifelong effects for Canada's children, but also for children globally.
Thank you.