PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
In Iowa, crashes result in more than 35,000 injuries annually, with approximately 3,000 of the injuries being of a serious nature.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
The goal of the Iowa Safe Communities program, developed by the Iowa Governor's Traffic Safety Bureau, was the reduction of crash-related injuries, particularly in high-risk communities. Objectives of the program were to:

• Promote collaboration among public and private health organizations, law enforcement agencies, traffic engineers and other concerned citizens, regarding issues of safety
• Identify high-risk groups and communities
• Determine the costs of crash-related injuries
• Develop a comprehensive package of injury prevention programs

STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES
Iowa's strategy for addressing the problem of crash-related injuries was the initiation of a Safe Communities program, for which injury prevention and reduction was a major focus. The Iowa Safe Communities program was implemented by the Governor's Traffic Safety Bureau in Fiscal Year 1996, using a systematic approach. This approach included the following activities:

• Development of a comprehensive traffic safety needs assessment
• Development of a community traffic crash injury database, in concert with the local Emergency Medical Services (EMS) providers and area hospitals
• Identification of all populations at high-risk for traffic injuries
• Specific design of programs of education and enforcement to address the injury prevention needs of the at-risk populations and communities

RESULTS
Results from the collection of data by the Siouxland District Health Department and the Black Hawk County Health Department, during the needs assessment phase of the Safe Communities effort, indicated a need for concentrated injury prevention activities in the two communities of Woodbury County and Black Hawk County. Woodbury County was found to have the highest injury rates among the state's larger communities, including the highest serious injury rates and the highest alcohol-related injury rates. The needs assessment revealed Black Hawk County to have the second highest traffic injury rates.

With assistance from the University of Northern Iowa, the medical community, and EMS personnel, databases for each county were constructed from local medical sources, from emergency 911 data, from public health data, and from area law enforcement agency crash data. The information in the databases was used to identify four high-risk groups for Black Hawk County: occupant restraint non-users, impaired drivers, pedestrians, and non helmeted bicycle and motorcycle riders. Three high-risk population groups were identified for Woodbury County: pedestrians, school-aged children, and parents in need of child safety seat education.

Black Hawk County elected to focus their injury prevention efforts on the impaired driver group. The local traffic safety group, Arrive Alive Task Force, and the Governor's Traffic Safety Bureau joined to implement several special enforcement events, strengthened by dissemination of educational materials and a strong public information and education effort.

Woodbury County focused on a high-risk group which encompassed two of the identified high-risk target populations: school-aged children who were pedestrians, walking to and from school. The Sioux City public school administration, the local Parent Teacher's Association (PTA), the Safe Communities Coalition, and the Siouxland District Health Department purchased safety vests and provided training for crossing guards.

FALL 1998