Unintentional child poisoning risk: a review of causal factors and prevention studies

Unintentional child poisoning represents a significant public health priority in the United States and globally. This paper was written to accomplish three goals: (a) outline and discuss a conceptual model of factors that lead to unintentional poisoning incidents among children under 5 years of age, including the roles of individual people, the environment, packaging and labeling of toxic products, and community and society; (b) review published literature concerning interventions designed specifically to reduce unintentional child poisoning; and (c) draw conclusions about what is known and what gaps exist in the current literature on unintentional child poisoning prevention to inform development, evaluation, and implementation of empirically-supported, theoretically-based prevention programs. The need for multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary, team-based approaches to prevention is emphasized.