Study Shows Power of Police & Fire Officers as Injury-prevention Messengers

[Monty 35]

Interesting link I was sent - on a dental site of all places.

http://www.dentalplans.com/articles/Study%...%20of%20Police/

Essentially I read in to it that interviews with the media at an emergency incident are a great place to get a safety message across - use of seatbelts, smoke detectors, sprinklers etc .....

The study analyzed 2,795 newscasts, 1,748 of which covered a specific incident in which a person or people were injured by a motor vehicle accident, a fire, a fall, a drowning, an accidental poisoning or a recreational or sporting mishap. The vast majority - 84 percent - of the stories involved vehicle crashes or fires.

Only 245 of the stories featured an interview with public service professionals such as police officers or firefighters. But such stories were far more likely to include prevention and risk-reduction information - nearly 2.5 times more likely for stories about motor vehicle crashes, and more than 2.75 times more likely for stories about fires.

Going forward, Pribble says, it's important for police and firefighters to be ready to speak about the steps that the public can take to reduce the risk of a fire, or to increase their chances of surviving a car crash.

But it's also important for such spokespeople to be up to date on the current status of public policy issues related to injury prevention, he notes. Television reporters may be unaware of the current status, unable to find the information in time for the evening news, or reluctant to include information about policy issues in a story about a particular accident for fear of appearing to advocate a certain position on an issue, he says.

But if the police officer speaking at the scene of a car crash in which a child was injured mentions that booster seats can help protect children from injuries, and adds that the state legislature is currently deliberating a new booster-seat law for children riding in cars, that information may be used in the final story, says Pribble, a lecturer in emergency medicine at the U-M Medical School. Pribble received support for this study from the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin