Cindy MacDougall
Northern News Services

NNSL (Nov 03/99) - An international expert on injury prevention visited Yellowknife Monday to encourage the city's health and community organizations to make Yellowknife Canada's second world-recognized "safe" city.

Dr. Leif Svanstrom, head of public health sciences at the Karolina Institute in Sweden, travels the world promoting the World Health Organization's Safe Communities designation program.

The Yellowknife Safe Communities Committee, which is made up of health and safety organization members, invited him to speak on the process of becoming a designated safe city.

The only designated safe community in Canada is Fort McMurray, Alberta.

"Safe communities are ones that have decided to work together, across many different sectors, to lower preventable injury and death rates in the community," he explained to a packed boardroom at Stanton Regional Hospital.

Svanstrom said preventable injuries and "accidents make up over 14 per cent of all premature death and disability in the world."

In the Northwest Territories, that rate is even higher, at 23 per cent, according to the safe communities committee.

A safe community, Svanstrom said, must meet 12 different criteria in order to be designated by the international program. The criteria include community-based organization, programming for all age groups, and special programming for those in high risk of accidental injury or death.

A safe community must also have a comprehensive way of documenting all preventable injuries and deaths.

Svanstrom stressed the importance of working together to solve problems such as violence, suicide and vehicle accidents.

"Many places have all of these resources, but they work in isolation. We need to get them to work together in order to bring the statistics down," he said.

Dr. Penny Sutcliffe, medical officer of the Stanton Regional Health Board and a member of Yellowknife's safe communities committee, said she was enthused by Svanstrom's presentation.

"It's the process of designation that's the important part," she said. "The criteria are a wonderful organizational tool to help us set up an interconnected prevention system."

Sutcliffe said the program's emphasis on cross-cultural organizing will also work well in the North.

"We want to change people's perception of safety while respecting traditional ways of living," she said. "Many people say, 'Life is hard here out on the land.' Life is hard on Highway 401 in Toronto, too, but we don't accept motor vehicle accidents there, and we shouldn't accept dangerous situations here."

Deputy fire Chief Mike Lowing said he hopes the city is on its way to designation, which is a five-year process.

"We have a lot of duplication of services here," he said. "People run their own programs in isolation. Connecting those programs is essential."