A recent study examined injury deaths by all causes to US children ages 4 and younger from 1981 through 2003. Although all racial groups showed improvements in unintentional injury rates, especially drowning, fire, motor vehicle occupant and pedestrian injuries, intentional injuries and unintentional suffocation rates did not show the same progress. Suffocation rates actually increased during the last 5 years of the study. Black and American Indian/Alaskan Native children continued to show higher mortality than white, Hispanic or Asian/Pacific Islander children.

Are US children receiving injury prevention counseling from their healthcare providers? A telephone survey (ICARIS-2) of almost 10 000 households found that 42.4% of children had been counseled—unchanged from a similar survey in 1994, but now covering more topics. Children who had received counseling were also more likely to live in households where the poison control center telephone number was posted and were more likely to use bicycle helmets. It is not known whether the children who were counseled were being seen …