Study shows power of police and fire officers as injury-prevention ...(be unaware of the current status unable ...),Health

But if the police officer speaking at the scene of a car crash in which a child was injured mentions that booster seats can help protect children from injuries, and adds that the state legislature is currently deliberating a new booster-seat law for children riding in cars, that information may be used in the final story, says Pribble, a lecturer in emergency medicine at the U-M Medical School. Pribble received support for this study from the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin

With the intense deadlines of daily TV news, its hard to get the media to change how it covers certain kinds of staple stories, he says. But if we can help the media have easy access to experts who can give useful information for the public, and information on what is being done on a policy level to make the public even safer, the end result will be the same: the public will be better informed about injury prevention.

The authors note that police officers and firefighters were not the only experts quoted in TV news stories, but they made up the lions share of the experts who appeared. Clinical experts including physicians and public health officials were used in a small number of stories, as were school and government officials, and national or state safety officials.

The TV coverage predominantly focused on two of the top causes of unintentional injury vehicle crashes and fires but neglected others that have large impacts on the publics health, such as falls.

'/>"/>