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DS 1 Establish a National Aquatic Venue Surveillance System for Drowning Prevention

Key area

Data Surveillance

Develop and implement a national surveillance system that includes collecting, analyzing, and sharing data from standardized incident reports at aquatic venues and services to inform the design and implementation of drowning prevention efforts.

Spectrum level: Influencing Policy and Legislation

Evidence level: Low

Implementation levels: Community County National State

Rationale:

Developing a national surveillance system, with implementation at the state or local levels, will allow compilation and comparison of drowning data across jurisdictions. Standardized information gathering allows public health to better monitor prevention strategies and evaluate programs to prevent future drownings. Measuring the impact of these infrastructure improvements is difficult; however, gains are hampered without such improvements. For example, information gathered by insurance companies is rarely available to be compiled and examined outside the specific insurance company (and may not even be examined inside the company).

Anticipated Impact:

After implementing this recommendation, you can expect to experience the following outcome.

  • Standardized information gathering leads to more effective monitoring of prevention strategies and evaluation of programs to prevent future drownings.

Evidence:

Water safety experts note that many service and aquatic venues collect information at the time of an incident; however, few compile data across similar venues or services to examine risk and preventive factors. For example, information gathered by insurance companies is rarely available to be compiled and examined outside the specific insurance company (and may not even be examined inside the company).

Evidence Sources:

Not Provided

High Risk Populations Addressed:

All populations can benefit from implementation of this recommendation.

Evaluation Metrics:

Indicators of long-term impact:

  • Implementation of venue-specific standardized minimum data set, or instrument for on-scene reports at the state, county, or local levels

Indicators of intermediate impact:

  • Development of minimum data set or instrument at the national level
  • Development of training on new minimum data set
  • Development of a reporting structure
  • Passing of policies, regulations or legislation to support implementation

Indicators of initial impact:

  • Increased number of venues, services or settings using the on-scene incident report
  • Increased number of venues (or staff) trained on using the on-scene incident report;
  • Enhanced data quality and completeness of on-scene incident report
  • Increased number of venues, services, and, or, settings which are implementing targeted drowning prevention mitigations
  • Increased number of venues, services, and, or, settings providing data for collation
  • Increased number of laws and policies passed in support of use

Implementation:

Consider the following to ensure successful implementation:

  • Standardize data collection and analysis to inform prevention strategies at aquatic venues.
  • Engage similar venues to collaborate with public health.
  • Consider that legislative authority might be necessary to collect and require reporting of incident data.
  • Develop an education and outreach strategy on the benefits and venue costs of adopting a reporting form and surveillance strategy
  • Develop partnerships between various local agencies to support data collection, trend analysis, and sharing of strategies.
  • Develop education and outreach on training opportunities to improve data collection and reporting and implementing surveillance strategies (if developed).
    • Integrate with state public health plans
  • Train personnel at aquatic venues so they gain experience in implementing public health surveillance strategies.
  • Identify the data system infrastructure needs to implement local surveillance programs.
  • Standardize reporting and analysis across venues.
  • Identify best practices to address near-misses and injuries at aquatic venues through education, enforcement, facility design and emergency response mitigations.
  • Conduct monitoring to evaluate effectiveness of mitigations.
  • Identify personnel training needs for data collection, selecting mitigations, and conducting surveillance.
  • Standardized data, collate across venues, analyze and disseminate back as data-for-action.
  • Develop a national model to support and encourage state/local adoption.

Challenges to Implementation:

When implementing this recommendation, you might encounter challenges related to the following factors.

  • Infrastructure at the state, county and local level to implement and support may be limited.
  • Additional data on costs for implementation and effectiveness may be needed to convince aquatic venues to invest in a surveillance strategy.
  • Recreational use and customer satisfaction may have potential impacts based on mitigations identified through the surveillance strategy.
  • There may be need for the collection of behavior-based data.
  • Data collection and analysis systems may be costly, and costs may be higher if personal data is collected that will need to be protected.
  • Initial development of training programs may be costly
  • Local training programs, travel and registration costs to attend or to develop if accessed remotely may be costly.
  • Tort liability exposure if corrective actions for prevention are identified and not implemented.
  • Collection of personally identifiable data by the entity and lack of protections may be an issue.
  • Standardized tools currently do not exists.
  • Data collection and analysis systems will need to be purchased and developed.
  • Skilled personnel who can analyze data will be needed.
  • Training programs available on how to use the reporting form and systems will need to be developed.
  • The ability to share data among other similar entities at local, state or national level will be needed.
  • Expertise and research needed to understand appropriate mitigation strategies for high-risk populations.
  • Measuring the impact of these infrastructure improvements may be difficult, however, gains are hampered without such improvements.

Potential Facilitators:

The following factors might facilitate the implementation of this recommendation.

  • Data collection is likely occurring in most venues in varied capacities.
  • Venues and Services may be interested in the prevention of injuries and drowning.
  • This recommendation should integrate well with other data collection efforts and reporting systems.

GAP Recommendation:

None