Attitudes of mothers of five-year-old children to compulsory child health provisions.

The attitudes of a sample of 1123 mothers of five-year-old children participating in the Christchurch Child Development Study, to a series of issues relating to the compulsory protection of children were studied. The issues examined were: the introduction of car seat restraint legislation, compulsory fencing of domestic swimming pools, the desirability of linking child health care provisions to family benefit payments and the desirability of water fluoridation. Contrary to common assumptions, this sample showed strong support for the introduction of compulsory methods for protecting child health: approximately 90% of respondents favoured car restraint and pool fencing provisions, two-thirds were in favour of linking family benefit payments to routine child health care provisions but less than half were in favour of water fluoridation. The implications of these findings for the introduction of compulsory child health provisions are discussed.