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Unintentional causes are responsible for 89% of child (under 15 years) deaths from injury; however, there is a huge potential to save children’s lives from injuries. WHO/Europe supports Member States in their efforts to achieve the priority goal of reducing child injuries by ensuring that the environments they live, learn and play in are safe.

The true extent of child maltreatment and the harm done to health and development have only just begun to be mapped out. To ensure children’s rights to grow and develop in a safe and caring family environment free from violence, WHO/Europe promotes a multisectoral approach which facilitates interventions at all levels of the child’s environment: the parents, the family, the community and society in general.

WHO/Europe's support  also aims to reduce inequalities in injuries, which make poorer children bear higher risks than their affluent peers.

Key facts and figures on child injuries and violence

• Road traffic crashes (23%), drowning (17%), poisoning (7%), fires and falls are the major contributors to the annual 42 000 injury deaths in children under twenty years of age and the 70 million hospitalizations and emergency hospital visits in the Region.
• Injuries drain the resources of health systems. They also affect society at large, and can severely impinge on families' income and quality of life.
• Child injuries are unequally distributed in the world and in Europe: they affect disproportionately and mostly children living in the countries undergoing the greatest socioeconomic change. There is up to an eight-fold difference between countries with the highest and lowest injury death rates in the WHO European Region.
• Regardless of their country's income, poor children are at highest risk. One of the major risk factors is the unsafe environment, as poor children may be exposed to fast traffic, lack of safe areas to play, crowded homes with unsafe structures such as stairs without rails or gates, or windows without bars and locks.
• Across Europe, infants are more at risk of fatal injury, physical abuse and neglect than older children, indicating that it is essential to intervene early with health and social services to prevent child maltreatment, death and disability. Young children and their families are especially vulnerable in countries undergoing social and economic transition, where health and social services may be poorly resourced.
• Deaths are only the tip of the clinical iceberg; for every child that dies, there are many hundreds more who have experienced maltreatment, often with far-reaching psychological, behavioural, physical and reproductive ill effects.