Joona Vuorenpää's presentation about Finnish Home Accident Prevention Campaign and safety in Finland (International Conference of Safe Communities, August 2009) www.kotitapaturma.fi

1. FINNISH HOME ACCIDENT PREVENTION CAMPAIGN
You have only one life.
15 August 2009, Cali, Colombia
Joona Vuorenpää
Chair of Campaign &
Communications Manager at
Federation of Finnish Financial Services

2. FINNISH HOME ACCIDENT PREVENTION CAMPAIGN
Facts about Finland
• Country of 5 million inhabitans.
• Land of 200,000 lakes.
• Democratic republic since 1917.
• One of the strongest European economies.
• Land of NOKIA, world’s biggest cruise ships, many kinds
of high tech, pulp&paper, machinery, F1 and Rally car
world champions, architects and composers…
• Word SAUNA probably the oldest globally used Finnish
word. Many Finns have two saunas or even more.

3. FINNISH HOME ACCIDENT PREVENTION CAMPAIGN
Problems:
• Heavy drinking combined with high risk taking.
• One of the highest number of home and leisure
accidents in Europe compared to population.
• Double the number of fatal home accidents compared
to Sweden in relation to population.
• Finns get bigger and fatter. This poses a practical but
strange problem – Finnish corpses don’t fit in to
traditional coffins any more.
• New and alarming phenomenon: School massacres…
Facts about Finland

4. FINNISH HOME ACCIDENT PREVENTION CAMPAIGN
Home accidents and injuries in Finland
• 800,000 out of 1,100,000 accidents a year are home
and leisure accidents.
• 2,700 deaths caused by home and leisure activities.
• 1,100 deaths (out of 2,700) caused by falling and
slipping. This is triple the number of lives lost in traffic!
• 50,000 visits to trauma clinics caused by slipping in
snow and ice every year.
• Economic losses due to home and leisure accidents in
Finland estimated as high as € 4 bn a year!

5. FINNISH HOME ACCIDENT PREVENTION CAMPAIGN
Accidents and violence
Work
18%
Violence
10%
Traffic
6%
Home and
leisure
66%

6. FINNISH HOME ACCIDENT PREVENTION CAMPAIGN
Fatal accidents
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
Fatal home accidents
Fatal traffic accidents
Fatal work accidents

7. FINNISH HOME ACCIDENT PREVENTION CAMPAIGN
Home accident related deaths globally
GB
Netherlands
Israel
Portugal
Australia
Ireland
Japan
Germany
Canada
Sweden
New Zealand
Spain
USA
Italy
Greece
Austria
Norway
Denmark
Switzerland
Finland
France
1970/1980
1990/1999

8. FINNISH HOME ACCIDENT PREVENTION CAMPAIGN
Reasons behind increase
in home accidents
• Increase in use of alcohol.
• Increase in leisure.
• Increase in aging population.
• Increase in “helplessness” among “young urban
professionals”.
• Increase in extreme hobbies and sport.
Too many people don’t care about proper training,
safety instructions etc. because they think they can
manage everything.

9. FINNISH HOME ACCIDENT PREVENTION CAMPAIGN
Home accident prevention campaign
Campaigning since 1993, present members:
• The Finnish Red Cross
• The Finnish National Rescue Association
• Local and Regional Government Finland
• Ministry of the Interior
• The National Defence Training Association of Finland
• National Public Health Institute
• Ministry of Social Affairs and Health
• Finnish Centre for Health Promotion
• Federation of Finnish Financial Services (Chair)

10. FINNISH HOME ACCIDENT PREVENTION CAMPAIGN
Home accident prevention campaign
Methods:
• Increasing public awareness by using media.
• Lobbying decision makers both local and national level.
• Supporting individual local players.
• Organising seminars, training and fairs.
• Producing printed and web based materials.
• Supporting Finland’s National Internal Security&Safety
Program and its objectives.

11. FINNISH HOME ACCIDENT PREVENTION CAMPAIGN
Safest home so far?
Portable safe home introduced summer 2009
-Wireless smoke/motion detector system.
-Emergency centre services, 24/7 on-call guard.
-Key management maintenance.
-Cuts off electricity from selected electric devices in case of a fire.
-Fire-extinguishing system with sprinklers and fire
alarms connected to the electric system.
-Turn electricity off from the stove in case of danger.
-Cuts off electricity and water from the dishwasher when it’s not used
or in case of leakage or malfunction.
-Fireproof textiles, anti-slip floor materials, effective lighting choices
and handrails.
-Affect insurance premiums and deductibles btn -25-60%.