Children’s Safety Network (CSN)

Challenge

Research shows that unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death in children and youth ages 0 to 19 in the United States. In 2018, the National Center for Health Statistics reported that injury-related deaths among 10- to 19-year-olds had significantly increased due to injuries, traffic accidents, substance misuse, violence, and suicide. These trends can and must be reversed.

EDC’s Children’s Safety Network (CSN) provides training and technical assistance (TA) to all U.S. state and jurisdiction health departments on evidence-based practices to prevent injuries, stop violence, and promote the well-being of children and youth. Nationwide, CSN’s resources and TA are building capacity to safeguard infants, children, and adolescents.

Key Activities

CSN guides public health professionals in using research, data, and quality improvement to protect young people, advance safety, and promote health equity. CSN’s recent activities include the following:

Coordinate the Children’s Safety Now Alliance (CSN-A), a national partnership of child safety experts across federal and state agencies, youth-serving organizations, hospitals, and universities
Produce and widely share publications—including fact sheets, guides, reports, infographics, and a newsletter—that share research, resources, and strategies to inform public health professionals
Manage and share findings from the Child Safety Learning Collaborative (CSLC), a network of practitioners from 26 state teams across 18 states and jurisdictions dedicated to the widespread, sustainable implementation of evidence-based strategies to reduce childhood injuries
Provide training and TA to state and territorial injury and violence prevention programs
Disseminate best practices, research findings, and evidence-based interventions through webinars, face-to-face trainings, and social media channels

Impact

By supporting health professionals, CSN helps improve the safety of hundreds of thousands of infants, children, and teens in states, tribes, territories, schools, and organizations. From 2018 to 2024, CSN produced 66 resources, provided 45 public webinars, and delivered 50 presentations at 16 national conferences.
CSN produced and disseminated the following recent publications:
- Health Equity Planner and Health Equity: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Assessment Guide for Multidisciplinary Teams
- Data maps with statistical comparisons of national and state rates for selected child safety topics
- Ensuring Child Safety During Times of Disruption fact sheet
- Adapting Child Safety Interventions Resource Guide
- Teen Dating Violence Prevention – Fact sheet with guidance developed with CSN-A
- Firearm Safety Resource Guide and firearm safety infographics
- Child Passenger Safety – Infographic available in English and Spanish
- Unintentional Poisoning Deaths in U.S. for Infants, Children, and Adolescents fact sheet
- A fact sheet and an infographic on injury and violence disparities between LGBQ+ and heterosexual youth
A few outcomes from CSN’s quality improvement work include:
- 53,000+ teens participated in evidenced-based programs for teen driver safety.
- 10,000+ child seats were inspected.
- 10,000+ infants' caregivers had access to safe sleep education.
- 11,000+ people completed youth suicide prevention training.
- 8,000+ youth were reached with evidence-based bullying prevention programs