Disseminating child injury news: What do parents understand for pediatric injury research in the news media?

Objective: To evaluate parental understanding of news messages about pediatric injury research findings in mothers of child under the age of 6.

Methods: Six focus groups were conducted in Columbus, Ohio in March of 2014, each containing 7 -9 mothers who had at least one child under age 6. The composition of groups differed based on annual household income (<30,000, 30,000-50,000, >50,000). Participants completed written exercises and discussed their reactions to three video clips of actual news coverage describing pediatric injury research (car seats, household poisoning, high chairs).

Results: Participants (n=49) reported having an average of 2 children with the mean child age of 4.9 years. The majority of participants were White (59%), 30-39 years of age (55%), married (53%), employed fulltime (69%), and had completed some college (81%).  Participants were likely to recall visual information (such as a crash test demonstration), as well as stories that contained ‘surprising’ information, and those describing a child injury perceived to be severe. Few participants remembered the number of injuries presented in the clips. Even after viewing the stories, only a minority of mothers reported being interested in learning more about injury prevention recommendations.

Conclusion: Participants were less likely to remember statistics and more likely to recall the information related to a child injury story or learn about recommendations to prevent injuries. . Successful clips provide an injury story that matches the research findings, uses graphics, visuals or animations and provides recommendations and actionable steps to motivate behavior change.