Costa Driely, Grundstein Andrew
Department of Environmental and Health Engineering, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, MG 36036-900, Brazil.
Department of Geography, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-2502, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2016 Jul 7;13(7):649. doi: 10.3390/ijerph13070649.
Our study investigates the incidence of children left unattended in parked motor vehicles in Brazil. These events have been widely explored in the United States but less so abroad, and never in Brazil. Over the period from 2006 to 2015, we collected data from news reports on 31 cases, including 21 fatalities. The circumstances mostly involved a caregiver, especially a parent, forgetting the child (71%), but cases also included the child being intentionally left in the vehicle (23%) or gaining access to the vehicle (3%). Children tended to be forgotten more frequently in fatal cases (86%), particularly on the way to daycare, than non-fatal incidents where circumstances were more evenly distributed between forgetting (40%) and being intentionally left behind (50%). Incidents occurred throughout the country but mostly in the southeastern region near the city of São Paulo. Additionally, the danger for children is present year-round as we observed cases in every season, albeit with a peak in the summer. This heat-related hazard is not well recognized across Brazil and we recommend increasing awareness through education. Further, given the high percentage of cases involving parents forgetting to leave their children at daycare, we recommend arrangements between daycare providers and parents to communicate when a child does not attend as expected.
我们的研究调查了巴西儿童被独自留在停放的机动车内的事件发生率。此类事件在美国已得到广泛研究，但在国外研究较少，在巴西则从未有过相关研究。在2006年至2015年期间，我们从新闻报道中收集了31起此类事件的数据，其中包括21起死亡事件。事件情况大多涉及看护人，尤其是父母，遗忘了孩子（71%），但也包括孩子被故意留在车内（23%）或进入车内（3%）的情况。与非致命事件相比，致命事件中孩子更常被遗忘（86%），尤其是在前往日托中心的路上，而非致命事件中，遗忘（40%）和被故意留下（50%）的情况分布更为均匀。此类事件在巴西全国均有发生，但大多发生在圣保罗市附近的东南部地区。此外，由于我们在每个季节都观察到了此类事件，尽管夏季达到高峰，但儿童面临的危险全年都存在。巴西对这种与高温相关的危险认识不足，我们建议通过教育提高认识。此外，鉴于涉及父母忘记将孩子送到日托中心的事件比例很高，我们建议日托服务提供者和父母之间做出安排，以便在孩子未按预期出勤时进行沟通。
