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Child safety education and the world wide web: an evaluation of the content and quality of online resources

¹ Injury Prevention Research Centre, St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto
² Injury Prevention Research Centre and Division of Neurosurgery, St Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto
³ Injury Prevention Research Centre, St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto and Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto

Correspondence to:
Dr Michael Cusimano
Injury Prevention Research Centre, St. Michael’s Hospital, 38 Shuter Street, Suite 2-018, Toronto, Ontario, M5B 1A6, Canada; injuryprevention{at}smh.toronto.on.ca

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to assess the content, quality, and type of internet resources available for safety education. Using 19 search engines with search strings targeting major forms of injury, identified resources were classified by audience group, accessibility, and authorship. Two independent reviewers rated each resource on the basis of its content and a set of quality criteria using a three point scale. Overall, 10 (18.2%) resources were of highest quality, four (7.3%) were intermediate, and 41 (74.5%) were not recommended. Eighteen months after the original search, 67.3% of all resources and 90% of the highest quality resources were still on the internet. This study provides a methodology for evaluating child safety resources on the world wide web and demonstrates that most internet resources for safety education are of dubious quality. A rating system such as the one developed for this study may be used to identify valuable internet materials.

Keywords: education; health; internet; evaluation; safety; trauma; world wide web