Child Safety Promotion Foundation
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Promote knowledge management and research to create knowledge on prevention and reduction of harm to children, including disseminating academic information for the development of effective policies and practices.
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Promote cooperation and networks to support collaboration between agencies, organizations and communities to create a sustainable child safety system.
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Develop media and learning for child safety. Produce and distribute creative media in various formats to provide children with knowledge and skills in protecting themselves from dangers around them.
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Disseminate knowledge through public media, using print media, radio, television, and digital media to pass on knowledge and guidelines for promoting safety to a wide audience.
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Drive public policy , support the development and promotion of policies that are conducive to creating a safe and child-friendly environment.
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Promote the participation of children and youth, open up space for children and youth to play a role in creating safety for themselves, their families, their communities and society.
Background
Associate Professor Dr. Adisak Phalitphonkanpim is a pioneer in the field of accident and violence prevention among children in Thailand. His decades of experience in the medical field led him to believe that accidents and child safety are a major cause of death or disability in children, and can also negatively impact the psyche of parents and other stakeholders. He embarked on a pioneering career focused on child safety, a field he loves. Safety is a fundamental human right, and all children have the right to equal care and support to grow and develop well in a safe and secure environment.
Creating safety is about giving love and care.
From an interview in Health Today magazine, April 2019 issue
When discussing "Thai children's health problems," it's believed that most people probably think of various diseases first. However, there's another problem that was overlooked in the past and may now be creeping up on Thais without their knowledge. It's a major problem and remains a major cause of death among Thai children: "child accidents," particularly "child drowning," which occurs at least every other year.
Associate Professor Dr. Adisak Phalitphonkanpim, Director of the National Institute for Child and Family Development and Director of the Child Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University, joins us in offering advice and guidelines on ensuring the safety of all our children, helping them grow into capable, morally upright adults with good life skills.
Thailand began to prioritize “child injury prevention” when the Outpatient Medicine Unit, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital, which was the unit where Dr. Adisak was then assigned, was assigned to study the health problems of Thai children in 1996 and found that 40 percent of Thai children who died between the ages of 1 and 15 years died from “accidents.”
"Once we learned about the causes of death among Thai children at that time, we studied data from other countries to see how things were going. We found that countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Sweden began prioritizing the prevention of childhood injuries in 1950. Data from each country shows that children in developed countries are more important when their economic and social status is higher and their rates of infectious diseases are lower."
"When analyzing Thailand's data at that time, it appears consistent with international data. The infection rate among Thai children began to decline in 1980, and declined rapidly as Thailand moved from low-income to middle-income. Accidents had long since replaced infectious diseases as the leading cause of death among Thai children, but had not yet been adequately diagnosed."
“The Outpatient Medicine Unit, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital, has been working on this issue since 1996. Initially, I had to study child safety promotion in Sweden, which is considered to have a systematic approach and is the number one country in the world. It's a country with a prominent figure named Professor Ragnar Berfenstam. He was a pioneer in this area from the beginning, pioneering integrated work since 1947, working from the life skills level to the enactment of Swedish legislation. This has significantly reduced the child accident mortality rate, earning him the title of "The Father of Child Injury Prevention." So I wrote to him, saying that Thailand was about to begin working on this issue and that I wanted to learn from him. When I wrote the letter, I didn't know how old he was. When he replied, I learned that he was already over 80 years old. However, he still replied, recommending that I contact a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. I spent two years there, studying child safety and policy management, participating in a project called Safe Community. During that time, I had the opportunity to study Professor Ragnar Berfenstam's entire career and apply it to Thailand.”
This was the first step in promoting safety for Thai children, followed by research funding from the World Health Organization in 1999–2002, as well as the establishment of the “Child Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital” in 2002, with the aim of reducing child mortality rates from various accidents.
“In establishing the Child Safety and Injury Prevention Research Center, we received advice from then-Professor Dr. Prawet Wasi Satharanakitkulbodi, Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital. Since he was a former anti-smoking advocate, he knew that solving these problems would require more than just building knowledge through research. He also needed to strengthen the foundations of public policy and legislation.”
"All of this encompasses knowledge creation, the creation of a supportive environment, and changes to the health system. This is a system-wide approach, collectively known as the 'health promotion system.' The research center was established to address this entire system, working collaboratively with various partners from both the public and private sectors, from the ministry level to local organizations," Dr. Adisak added.
Prevention must be systemic.
After the establishment of the Center for Research and Promotion of Child Safety and Injury Prevention, the Center discovered that while accidents were a leading cause of child deaths, drowning was in fact the number one cause—something no previous agency had identified.
“In 2002, 3,600 children aged 1–15 died from accidents, and 1,600 of these deaths were caused by drowning, followed by road accidents and other causes. We began studying the causes and risk factors, and in 2003, with the creation of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, we proposed the ‘Safe Thai Children Project’ to build life skills and safety awareness through national networks. The project has been supported by ThaiHealth since the Center’s founding.”
Over the past 16 years of integrated work, child deaths from accidents have decreased from 3,600 to 2,200 per year, while drowning deaths dropped from 1,600 to 750—more than half. The sharpest decline occurred among children under six.
“Data show three main causes of death among children under six: the child’s behavior, the caregiver, and the environment. At this age, children can’t care for themselves and are curious about everything—putting things in their mouths, touching electrical outlets, or falling into water containers. Many household hazards, such as low electrical sockets, dangling kettle cords, or open water jars, go unnoticed by parents because they seem familiar and harmless.
Parents also tend to think, ‘It’s fine,’ leaving a child alone for a moment to answer the phone—yet that brief lapse can be fatal. Such unawareness often leads to tragedy.”
To prevent this, the Center created model cases and safety guidelines—such as placing outlets 1.5 meters above the floor—and raised awareness through TV, radio, and print media. It also worked with the Ministry of Public Health to include child safety tips in vaccination booklets and trained doctors and nurses to educate parents during visits. Collaboration with the Thai Industrial Standards Institute and the Consumer Protection Board led to mandatory warning labels on children’s products and deep bathtubs, such as: “Danger: A child can drown.”
These warning systems extended beyond classroom-based parent education, helping families recognize everyday dangers and make their homes safer for children.”