Indian Health Council, Inc. (IHC) was founded in 1970 as the first tribally owned and operated health clinic of its kind in the State. IHC is a healthcare consortium of nine federally recognized tribes. IHC is located in an 1,800 square mile service area within rural northern San Diego County, California. Our current user population is 5,185. IHC’s Mission is “To continually nurture a balance of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.”
The purpose of the proposed project is to increase awareness and understanding of the importance of child passenger safety seats and seat belt use within the nine consortium tribes and to prevent unintentional motor vehicle injuries within IHC’s tribal communities. This will be achieved by employing a full-time Injury Prevention Coordinator solely dedicated to the management and coordination of the Injury Prevention Program, who. will be responsible for achieving the goals set forth by the work plan. By the end of Year 5, the Injury Prevention Coordinator will develop and maintain activities and events to steadily increase child safety seat compliance to 96% and seat belt compliance to 89% among the 9-tribe consortium. During the last TIPCAP cycle (2015-2020), the IHC’s Injury Prevention Program past accomplishment included raising the child safety seat compliance from a low of 68% to a high of 78%. This was achieved through conducting Child Passenger Safety Seat Classes in which parents/caregivers received education regarding the correct use of safety seats, the seat effectiveness in preventing injuries and death, and car seats were distributed upon completion. Developing and distributing educational materials also played a huge role in raising the compliance rate.
The proposed project will focus on the following four goals: (1) By the end of Year 5, increase child safety seat compliance from 78% to 96% among the nine consortium tribes; (2) By the end of Year 5, increase seat belt compliance from 79% to 89% among the nine consortium tribes; (3) By the end of Year 5, establish and sustain local tribal partnerships to increase awareness, education, and safety for motor vehicle occupants; (4) By the end of Year 5, establish effective evaluation tools to measure the outcomes of Goals 1-3.