by Dawn Exley, National Development Officer

On 23rd and 24th June, our Chief Officer, Lorraine and I (Dawn, National Development Officer) headed off to Vienna to present to European delegates at the EU Safety Conference 2022 to showcase our Experiences & Perceptions of Community Safety animation as well as our Causation Factors of Unintentional Injury in the Home research. 

We arrived in Vienna to a cool 35 degrees(!) so were delighted the conference, despite being hosted in a historic Viennese ‘palais’, was suitably air-conditioned-phew!  The conference, which focussed on safety in a digitalized world, began with an inspiring input from Jonathon Passmore from the World Health Organisation, reminding us that no statistic is too small to pay attention to.  One preventable death, is one too many. 

Over the next days we were treated to many fantastic and thought provoking inputs, giving us food for thought to bring home to Scotland.  Ones that really peaked our interest were:

  • Can AI help us reduce falls?  Is the future of home safety digital?
  • Learning from the French EPAC surveillance system for home and leisure injuries
  • Using the Dutch household research into fireworks to inform our own approach
  • Taking lessons from a successful German project using social media to convey safety messages
  • And many areas to progress around child safety – particularly falsified consumer goods, trampoline injuries and water safety.

For more information on all these topics, you can download the conference presentations here.

One of the best aspects of the conference was the opportunity to network.  We came home with many ideas to follow-up and people to make further links with.  One of the most exciting connections was with the Norwegian Safety Forum, our counterparts in Norway, who we hope to set up an exchange with.

All in all, it was well worth the trip!  Our presentations were well received, we came home armed with ideas and contacts and we even got to see a bit of Vienna and sample local delicacies – it helped that Café Central was a mere 5 metres across from the conference centre!  If you are interested in finding out more, click here for a short video on the 2 day event.