A Wicked Problem: Early Childhood Safety in the Dynamic, Interactive Environment of Home

Jean Simpson, Geoff Fougere and Rob McGee
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Jean Simpson: Injury Prevention Research Unit, Department of Preventive & Social Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
Geoff Fougere: Department of Public Health, Wellington School of Medicine, University of Otago, Wellington 6021, New Zealand
Rob McGee: Department of Preventive & Social Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand

IJERPH, 2013, vol. 10, issue 5, 1-18

Abstract: Young children being injured at home is a perennial problem. When parents of young children and family workers discussed what influenced parents’ perceptions and responses to child injury risk at home, both “upstream” and “downstream” causal factors were identified. Among the former, complex and interactive facets of society and contemporary living emerged as potentially critical features. The “wicked problems” model arose from the need to find resolutions for complex problems in multidimensional environments and it proved a useful analogy for child injury. Designing dynamic strategies to provide resolutions to childhood injury, may address our over-dependence on ‘tame solutions’ that only deal with physical cause-and-effect relationships and which cannot address the complex interactive contexts in which young children are often injured.

Keywords: childhood; injury; parents; risk perception; social environment; qualitative research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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