"Safe Community" in Asia: Safety Promotion Based on Injury Prevention

Safe Community (SC), a model of safety promotion based on injury prevention, has been introduced in over 180 communities worldwide since 1989. In the Asian region, SC is drawing more attention from local governments and practitioners and academia than in other regions. Because of SC's holistic approaches, communities are required to work with various actors in different fields. Among these collaborations, there is an especially strong link with efforts for health promotion, because safety is considered as a prerequisite to the maintenance and improvement of the well-being and health of the population. SC takes a setting-oriented approach that focuses on a framework and process. In each of these two aspects, there are features that distinguish SC from existing approaches of safety promotion. Features in the SC model, which are contained in the six indicators, have brought improvement of safety in many communities throughout the world by integrating existing social resources, even though they may vary from one community to another.