Drowning Prevention: Assessment of a Classroom-Based Water Safety Education Program in Vietnam

Abstract

Youth drowning continues to be a primary public health issue globally with Eurasian countries experiencing some of the highest recorded rates of injury and death in aquatic settings. The country of Vietnam is currently working toward reducing the number of youth drowning fatalities. Part of these efforts is the introduction of an in-school water safety educational program. For this study, pilot pre/post data were acquired and used to assess overall knowledge acquisition and changes in knowledge of youth in grades 1 to 5 in central Vietnam. A total of 229 schools participated, resulting in 40 198 usable surveys. The results indicated that overall there was a significant change in scores with an acceptable effect size between measures. Mean scores for each of the water safety messages were rated as acceptable (above 90%), satisfactory (between 70% and 90%), and areas of concern (under 70%). Recommendations were made to program leaders about identified areas of concern.