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Impact of Age-Related Play and Injury Patterns on Human Factors Criteria for Playground Equipment Safety

About one-third of all public playground equipment injuries are sustained by children under 6 years of age. Injury data indicate that children in this age group are at particular risk of injuries to the head and face. A recent detailed analysis of playground equipment design issues (Ratté, Morrison, Lerner, Denham, and Johnson, 1990) formed the basis for an update and expansion of the Handbook for Public Playground Safety, published in 1980 by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. An important focus of this work was to develop recommendations that take into account the critical differences between preschool-age and school-age children with respect to the following factors: physical capabilities; anthropometric measures; play patterns; cognitive skills; and injury patterns and common injury scenarios associated with specific types of equipment. This paper illustrates how these factors were applied to the analysis of swing-related safety problems, and describes some of the difficulties involved in developing human factors criteria for playground equipment safety. Although specific design recommendations addressed the safety of each type of equipment, other issues were also of critical importance in evaluating each product's potential for injury, including use and fall zones around equipment, spatial relationships with other equipment and activities on the playground, separation of children of different ages, and adult supervision. These considerations sometimes represented conflicting safety concerns.