Canadian Child Safety Report Card
Supporting injury prevention and the implementation of effective safety practices by increasing injury awareness with data visualizations
Partner
BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit
UBC Department of Pediatrics
The Digital Lab
Type of work
Health Information
technology
Overview
Creating Safer Environments by Preventing Injury
The Digital Lab, UBC Department of Pediatrics and the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit (BCIRPU) partnered to develop the Canadian Child Safety Report Card (CSRC). Accidental injuries were the second leading cause of children’s hospitalizations in Canada in 2019, although 90% of these injuries could have been prevented with effective safety regulations. While other countries have CSRCs to identify common injuries and provide prevention methods, Canada does not. Further, injury prevention policies and rates vary greatly across provinces in Canada. As provinces don’t collect data together, creating effective safety policies is difficult. The Canadian Child Safety Report Card website was developed to create safer environments across Canada.
Research & Design
Visualizing Data for Evidence-Based Injury Prevention
In order to help policy makers create a safer environment across Canada with evidence-based information, the Digital Lab, UBC Department of Pediatrics and the BCIRPU partnered to develop the Canadian Child Safety Report Card.
The BCIRPU compiled available injury and hospitalization data from 9 of the 13 Canadian provinces and territories. Subsequently, the Digital Lab converted this data into graphs, animations and infographics to effectively highlight key data, simplify large numbers and data sets and provide clear visual representations. The Canadian Child Safety Report Card will enable policy makers across the country to understand differences in injury across provinces with both province, and nationwide specific injury statistics. The primary user navigation interface is simple, being a map of Canada which allows users to view data from each of the provinces rapidly.
The Canadian Child Safety Report Card additionally highlights existing inequalities that exist in injury prevention across Canada. Ideally, this platform will inform public health and safety regulations to encourage safer living for all Canadians.
Impact
Evidence-Based Injury Prevention Platform for Policy Makers
The Canadian Child Safety Report Card acts as a hub for injury and hospitalization data from the majority of Canadian provinces. This resource will guide policy makers in implementing effective health and safety regulations that aim to reduce the rate of injury across the country. Further, by making this evidence-based information both open-access and simplified in appealing data visualizations, it should allow users of all educational backgrounds to take effective safety precautions for themselves, and for children that they care for.
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