Safe community in different settings

Abstract

This paper describes the Safe Community concept and how communities aspired to safety through a structured, collaborative approach rather than a community that is already perfectly safe. The Safe Community movement started in Sweden at the end of the 1980s and was based on community-based injury prevention activities. Safe Communities are the communities that meet a set of 12 criteria (later changed to six indicators) set out by the WHO Collaborating Centre (WHO CC) on Community Safety Promotion at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. The communities may apply to the WHO CC to be designated as an official member of the WHO International Safe Community Network. To date, 83 communities around the world have been designated as members of the Safe Community Network, ranging in population from 1000 to nearly 2 million. Lidkjöping in Sweden was the first designated safe community in 1989 and Rapla in Estonia was the last, designated in October 2004. The movement recognizes that it is the people who not only live, learn, work and play in a community but also best understand their community's specific problems, needs, assets and capacities. Their involvement and commitment are critical factors in identifying and mobilizing resources so as to create an effective, comprehensive and coordinated community-based action on unintentional and intentional injuries.