Haus und Freizeit - bfu

4. Home and leisure
Despite intensive prevention efforts, the number of
leisure accidents in Switzerland has been steadily
increasing for years. Around 1 million people are
injured each year in non-occupational accidents –
100,000 in traffic accidents, 300,000 doing sport
and 600,000 at home or when pursuing a hobby.
No fewer than three-quarters of fatal accidents
occur in the sector home and leisure. These figures
illustrate the importance of accident prevention in
the home and leisure sector.
In 6 of the 7 accident segments, children and
adolescents represent a risk group. The bfu therefore
recommends that prevention work for this age
segment should not focus solely on «Falls», but on
the accident scene as a whole. This will create opportunities
to take multipliers and/or multiplicative
settings into consideration.
In the case of the adult age group, investigations
should establish whether there are any synergistic
interactions between the occupational and nonoccupational
accident areas and whether these
should be taken into consideration with regard to
joint prevention work.
The purpose of the safety dossier «Home and Leisure»
is to provide the bfu and other Swiss institutions,
organizations and interest groups with the
basis for the strategic planning and implementation
of preventive measures and/or programmes in
the home and leisure sector.
For this purpose, key accident factors are identified
based on epidemiological analyses of the Swiss
accident scene. Using analytical methods and expertise,
risk factor profiles are created for the accident
segments «Falls», «Broken glass, sheetmetal,
etc.», «Animals», «Equipment, tools, appliances,
machinery», «Burns/chemical burns», «Poisoning»
and «Electrocution». Prevention methods are then
developed and evaluated on this basis.
Where prevention activities relating to «Falls»
sustained by senior citizens are concerned, a
differentiation between older people «living independently»
and «not living independently» makes
sense.
In addition to prevention in the key accident areas
of «Falls» and «Children and adolescents», the
relatively low extent of accidents in the other accident-
and age-related segments must be kept at
least as low and, at best, reduced. This requires the
uninterrupted continuation of prevention work at
its current high level.
Most injuries (50%) and fatal accidents (80%)
occur in the «Falls» accident segment. Therefore,
the major focus in the home and leisure accident
sector is on preventing falls.
18 Abstract / Résumé / Compendio / Abstract bfu-Sicherheitsdossier Nr. 09