KDHE Receives CDC Funding to Prevent Residential Fire Deaths and
Injuries in Local Communities

CDC Grant to Implement Smoke Alarm Installation and Fire-Safety Education Program

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment announced today that it has received $140,113 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to conduct a smoke alarm installation and fire-safety education program. CDC awarded grants to 11 state public health departments, three city public health departments and one hospital.

The fifteen new awardees are:  Alabama; Alaska; Georgia; Kansas; Kentucky; Maryland; Massachusetts; North Carolina; Oklahoma; South Carolina; Virginia; Bridgeport, Connecticut; St. Louis, Mo.; Dallas, Texas; and the Children’s Hospital of Michigan. Arkansas and Montana will be continuing their efforts, bringing the total number of funded projects to 17.

KDHE will implement the program in areas where fire death rates are higher than state and national averages and median household incomes are below the poverty level. In each community, local grantees will canvass homes, targeting households with the highest risk groups – children ages five years and younger and adults ages 65 years and older. They will help install long lasting smoke alarms, powered by lithium batteries and share fire-safety education messages. “This funding will allow us to better serve those members of our communities who are most vulnerable to residential fire injuries and also educate the broader public about fire safety,” said Lori Haskett, Injury Prevention Director.

Deaths from fires and burns are the third leading cause of fatal home injury in the United States. In 2005, fire departments responded to 396,000 home fires that claimed the lives of 3,030 people and injured another 13,825, not including firefighters.

CDC’s initial work in residential fire death prevention began nearly 20 years ago with research to identify who is most at risk for fire-related deaths and injuries and why.  In subsequent years, CDC funded research showing that smoke alarm installation programs coupled with education save lives.

CDC works in partnership with the United States Fire Administration, part of the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and several non-government organizations to coordinate a national effort to substantially reduce the number of residential fire deaths. “ Since this smoke alarm installation and fire-safety education program began, more than 1,100 lives have been saved. We are pleased that KDHE is joining this effort to help reduce residential fire deaths in local communities. Working together, we can save even more lives and move closer to reaching our goal of eliminating residential fire deaths,” said Ileana Arias, PhD, Director of CDC’s Injury Center.

To learn more about CDC’s injury prevention efforts, visit www.cdc.gov/injury. To learn more about the Kansas program visit www.kdheks.gov/kfipp/.

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