O3007: Partners for Child Fatality Prevention: Education & Advocacy

Background: Child Death Review Teams (CDRT) review circumstances surrounding child deaths to prevent future fatalities. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) provided local Chapter awards to promote engagement with CDRTs. Partners for Child Fatality Prevention was designed to develop a sustainable partnership that shares, translates, and disseminates data with recommendations to inform interventions and advocacy.

Methods: We created a pediatrician-led multidisciplinary team with statewide members, including a local Sr. Deputy Coroner to review and analyze available de-identified data from 2018 to 2020. Data sources included CDRT, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) EpiCenter, and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). We developed an educational advocacy platform that included the following webinar topics: leading causes of death and the role of CDRT; pediatric drowning; youth suicide and action items. Webinars were developed with the intent to expand on the role CDRT plays in the prevention of such fatalities. Participants were presented with fatality data and case studies, in addition to topic-specific content. Webinars were evaluated with standard tools for CME/MOC part 2.

Results: Data: The 5 leading causes of injury death among California children by the following age groups: under 1 year, 1-4, 5-9, 10-14, and 15-17 years are presented in Table 1.

Educational Advocacy: The three webinars covered: 1) Child Death Review (127 participants); 2) Drowning (172 participants); 3) Youth Suicide (154 participants). Overall, 41% were Physicians; 59% were “Other Learners.” On a scale of 1-5, all three webinars were rated above 4.5. “Intent to implement a change” comments fell into the following categories: 1) increased anticipatory guidance related to age-related causes of injury death; 2) increased awareness of CDRT processes and opportunities to participate; 3) informing others on CDRT findings and recommendations; 4) advocacy for a statewide CDR-Council. Practice change implementation barriers included language, time, stigma, and cultural issues regarding the subject.

Policy Advocacy: The team strongly supported advocating through AAP-California (AAP-CA) for the reactivation of the California Child Death Review Council. Two state bills were introduced to increase local CDRT team collaboration and reactivate the 2008-defunded CA CDR Council. Senate Bill 855: Childhood Drowning Data Collection Pilot Project sponsored by AAP-CA is in the legislative process.

Conclusion: The overall goal of CDR is to provide intervention recommendations for preventable childhood deaths. Our team reviewed data on preventable child death; conducted educational webinars, created a website, and is advocating for the reactivation of our child death review council and fatal child abuse and neglect surveillance project, and establishing a childhood drowning data system. We established a sustainable chapter initiative. Our project enhanced the capacity of pediatricians and multi-sector partners with the knowledge and skills to participate in injury prevention advocacy from the office to the legislature.