LJ 13 Increase Access to Affordable U.S. Coast Guard-Approved Life Jackets Year-Round
Increase year-round availability of, and access to, affordable U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jackets through retail outlets and community-based organizations.
Spectrum level: Changing Organizational Practices Promoting Community Education
Evidence level: Medium
Rationale:
Evidence shows that people often have a hard time finding life jackets by mid summer. Additionally, parents and adults have reported needing lower cost, more culturally engaging, access to life jackets. Koon et al. report that parents value having life jackets available at a community based site like the local "Head Start" program. Ebel et al. report that access to low cost booster seats at child care centers are one component of a community campaigns that result in a significant increase in booster seat use. Based on these community interventions, being able to get a life jacket year round at typical places where people shop, or at community locations people frequent, may help remove a barriers to life jacket access and use. Based on the results reported by Ebel et al., this could help nearly double life jacket use among children during water activities where life jackets are not required.
Anticipated Impact:
After implementing this recommendation, you can expect to experience the following outcomes.
- Increasing year-round availability of, and access to, affordable U.S. Coast Guard approved life jackets through retail outlets and community-based organizations leads to more people finding life jackets by mid summer.
- Increasing year-round availability of, and access to, affordable U.S. Coast Guard approved life jackets through retail outlets and community-based organizations leads to greater access to lower cost life jackets. Increasing year-round availability of, and access to, affordable U.S. Coast Guard approved life jackets through retail outlets and community-based organizations can increase access to life jackets at child care centers for parents and care givers.
- Increasing year-round availability of, and access to, affordable U.S. Coast Guard approved life jackets through retail outlets and community-based organizations leads to an increase in life jacket use.
Evidence:
Water safety experts believe that life jacket use may increase with more comfortable devices, such as inflatable life jackets, and with increased awareness of their efficacy in preventing drowning. Additionally, boater education classes may be associated with increased life jacket use among adults. There is data to suggest that modifications in life jackets could make them safer and more wearable, which could increase life jacket wear and potentially prevent drownings. A community-based intervention found that for parents, both owning a life jacket and feeling confident and comfortable choosing and fitting a life jacket for their child significantly increased use. A life jacket intervention that included culturally relevant messaging and the provision of life jackets at a reduce costs among indigenous people was related to a 53% reduction in drowning rate in the Alaskan Native community. There are a variety of factors that should be considered when identifying what influences the use of life jackets. These include, but are not limited to; age, gender, watercraft type and size, role modeling, aquatic activity, aquatic environment, discomfort, alcohol consumption, cost, accessibility, education, ethnicity, household income, boating ability. Research has identified several key factors linked with the lack of life jacket use, including workability, identity/social stigma, and risk diffusion. Future life jacket interventions will need to focus on barriers to life jacket wear like issues of comfort and ease of use, the social acceptability of life jackets, and a reorientation of risk perceptions related to falls overboard. There are initiatives that ensure that there is a supply of safety equipment (like PFDs) in local stores and others include local leaders in program delivery. Finally, some initiaives even train leaders in boating safety to help them instill lessons learned in their communities.
Evidence Sources:
Quistberg D.A., Quan L., Ebel B.E., Bennett E.E., & Mueller B.A. (2014). Barriers to life jacket use among adult recreational boaters. Injury Prevention, 20(4), 244-50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2013-040973
Weil R., Pinto K., Lincoln J., Hall-Arber M., & Sorensen J. (2016). The use of personal flotation devices in the Northeast lobster fishing industry: An examination of the decision-making process. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 59(1), 73-80. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.22537
Peden A., Demant D. Hagger M. & Hamilton K. (2018). Personal, social, and environmental factors associated with lifejacket wear in adults and children: A systematic literature review. PLoS One, 13(5), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196421
Quan L., Crispin B., Bennett E., & Gomez A. (2006). Beliefs and practices to prevent drowning among Vietnamese-American adolescents and parents. Injury Prevention, 12(6), 427-9. https://doi.org/10.1136/ip.2006.011486
C. Thomas Clagett, Jr. Memorial Clinic and Regatta. (2018) Life jacket and rescue study of boaters with adaptive needs. https://www.ussailing.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/LifeJacketandRescueStudy.pdf
Bennett E., Cummings P., Quan L., & Lewis F.M. (1999). Evaluation of a drowning prevention campaign in King County, Washington. Injury Prevention, 5,109-113. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ip.5.2.109
Crozier M., & Giles A.R.. (2020). Promising practices for boating safety initiatives that target indigenous peoples in New Zealand, Australia, the United States of America, and Canada. International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education, 12, (4), Article 8. https://doi.org/10.25035/ijare.12.04.08
High Risk Populations Addressed:
Populations whose risk of drowning decreases the most with the implementation of this recommendation may have one or more of the following characteristics:
- Individuals with who primarily speak a language other than English
- Racially and culturally diverse communities
- Communities with immigrant backgrounds
- Children and teens
- Individuals with limited financial resources
- Individuals who don’t own life jackets
- Individuals unfamiliar with the water
Evaluation Metrics:
Indicators of long-term impact:
- Increase in life jacket use amongst all ages
- Increase in life jacket use amongst lower socioeconomic groups
- Increase in life jacket use amongst in both boating and non boating water environments.
- Increase in the availability of life jackets on a year-round basis
- Increased access to life jackets through a variety of mechanisms
- Reduced cost of life jackets for consumers.
- Increased use of life jackets due to efforts to provide greater access by community-based programs
Indicators of intermediate impact:
- Reduction (or flat line increase) in life jacket prices over a 5-year period
Indicators of initial impact:
- Increase in customer perception of “wearability” of life jackets
- Increase in sales of life jackets
- Increase in identifiable use at water venues.
- More favorable customer satisfaction survey results in regards to life jacket availability and cost.
Implementation:
Consider the following to ensure successful implementation:
- Seek retailers that will provide year round access to life jackets in store.
- Encourage national retailers to create relationships with youth sports leagues at the national level (AAU teams/clubs, USA Swimming teams/clubs, USTAF teams and clubs, etc.).
- Leverage relationships with national retailers to promote life jacket use and discounted products with the purchase of seasonal equipment.
- Encourage national retailers, aquatics equipment makers, and other stakeholders to partner with K-12 school districts in low income, at-risk communities, to offer life jacket distributions (similar to bike helmet distributions, car seat distributions, gun lock distributions, etc.).
- Include life jackets where boats are sold, where sporting equipment is sold, and, or where emergency response equipment is sold (such as through the Red Cross).
- Include education about boating and non-boating uses for life jackets as part of retail or community access (link with related efforts to provide practice and demonstration).
- Encourage on-line sales of life jackets in “non seasonal use times” and order from retail outlets during the off season.
- Make life jackets accessible for all communities by utilizing a public health lens; one that promotes greater good for a greater number of people in the community with special consideration for low-income, at risk populations.
- Consider successful low cost sales, including education, demonstration and practice, done by Seattle Parks in partnership with US Coast Guard Auxiliary.
- Encourage life jacket access at point-of-use locations (including, but not limited to, community pools, hotels, K-12 schools, apartment complexes, camp grounds, water parks, Boys & Girls Clubs, fitness centers, etc).
- Include give aways, low cost sales, retail sales at point-of-use locations.
- Promote life jacket use as not only something for boats, but rather for all water sports/activities.
- Conduct community baseline assessment of current life jacket access, knowledge and use in the community.
- Define gaps in access and identify potential mechanisms to fill those gaps.
- Create recommendations for life jacket access at the above noted locations as part of standard operating practice.
- Increase retail access to life jackets via a multi sectoral approach for retailers to create enhanced access to customers for these devices.
- Consider discounted coupons to help with life jacket costs.
- Promote life jackets as part of emergency safety kits to prepare for floods, hurricanes and tsunamis.
Challenges to Implementation:
When implementing this recommendation, you might encounter challenges related to the following factors:
- Creating buy-in with retailers when space is limited in retail stores may be difficult.
- During low product purchase times of the year, having warehouse space available for stock items may not be appealing to a retailer that wants “in season” products readily available.
- The financial impact of action steps to venues being requested to help provide life jackets for public use, including the potential cost of supporting discount coupons, may be difficult to overcome and a barrier to implementation.
- Overcoming community perception that life jacket wear, and water safety generally, is not as important as other injury interventions such as bike helmets or car seats may be a challenge.
Potential Facilitators:
The following factors might facilitate the implementation of this recommendation:
- Consider efforts by the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators (NASBLA) a point of sale program as an example.
- Consider the state of Alaska and their in-store training with dealers and retailers when exploring opportunities to implement this recommendation.
Consider the following entities as potential facilitators
- National retailers and life jacket manufacturers (Dick’s Sporting Goods, Speedo, Nike, Coleman, Sterns, Billabong, Adidas, Finis, Arena, etc)
- Independent retailers
- Schools
- Fitness clubs
- Hotels
- Community pools
- Apartment complexes
- Water parks
- Campgrounds
- Child care
- Community based organizations that serve low income and culturally diverse families
- Low income housing
GAP Recommendation:
None