Leveraging community stakeholders to prevent recreational injuries in National Parks

The National Park Service consists of 394 parks covering millions of acres of land and waterways that present inherent risks to the millions of annual visitors. Over the last 10 years, NPS reported an annual average of 6,200 unintentional serious injuries and 155 fatalities among visitors in the parks. The leading causes of death include drowning, motor vehicle crashes, fall related injuries, and environmental causes. Because of the complexity of managing the wide range of potential injuries in parks among diverse populations of visitors across multiple jurisdictions, it is not possible to prevent injuries in parks without committed park staff and strong partnerships among local stakeholders to identify key issues and lead major efforts in promoting safety. Using case studies of successful multi-agency collaborations, this session illustrates how partnerships between local businesses, neighboring city and county emergency responders, recreational outfitters, and other stakeholders can improve and standardize safety messaging, share data and resources, and develop multi-faceted injury prevention strategies. George Washington Memorial Parkway (GWMP) is one example of this collaboration. GWMP staff launched a safety task force to educate trail users on how to exercise safety practices, improved trail design and maintenance, and developed safety signs in key areas. This session will demonstrate how one park identified innovative methods for leveraging community stakeholders as well as agency divisional staff and academic experts to utilize risk management strategies to help prevent unintentional recreational injuries in their park, even serving within a mission that is neither focused on safety or public health.