Questioning risk-based fire and life safety education age priorities

Conventional wisdom assumes that Fire and Life Safety Education (FLSE) programmes should be concentrated on high-risk groups, an approach that prioritises children under 14 years of age and adults aged 65 years and over. Warda et al1 declare it ‘essential to decisively target campaigns to those at highest risk for fire injury’, and identify young children and the elderly as the two age groups requiring this focus due to their higher relative risk of dying in a fire. The US Department of Homeland Security advocates for the same strategy in establishing guidelines for fire prevention grant applications, and UK Fire and Rescue Services similarly allocate FLSE resources by risk.2 3 In observing FLSE programmes, Diekman et al4 confirm that young children and older adults have been rightfully recognised as priorities. The result is FLSE campaigns that either teach children youth-oriented lessons...
Source: Injury Prevention - Category: Accident Prevention Authors: Tags: Commentary Source Type: research