Seattle Children's Bicycle Helmet Campaign
Community-wide campaign in Seattle (from 1986) run by a coalition of health, bicycle and helmet-industry groups. It told parents that riding without a helmet is dangerous, cut helmet prices with discount coupons, and worked to make helmets acceptable to children.
- Years
- 1986–now
- Country
- United States
- Topic
- Injury preventionTraffic safety
- Asks people to
- Start
- Strategy
- Policy pairedSimple instruction
- Channel
- Clinical settingEventsPoint of salePrintSchoolTV
- Audience
- ParentsYouthParents of school-age children and children aged 5-15 in Seattle.
Evidence
Quasi-experimentalPositive
Observed helmet use (9,827 child riders) rose from 5.5% to 15.7% in Seattle vs 1.0% to 2.9% in Portland, the control city (DiGuiseppi 1989). By 1992 use reached 40.2%, and bicycle-related head injuries in an HMO population fell about 67% among children aged 5-14 (Rivara 1994, no control).
Sponsor (who paid)
- Seattle coalition of health, bicycle and helmet-industry organizations (Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center and partners) NGO, organizer
Credits (who made it)
Not recorded yet.
Sources
- DiGuiseppi CG, Rivara FP, Koepsell TD, Polissar L. Bicycle helmet use by children: evaluation of a community-wide helmet campaign. JAMA 1989;262(16):2256-61 evaluation · 1989 · PMID 2795807
- Bergman AB. The Seattle Children's Bicycle Helmet Campaign. Am J Dis Child 1990 history · 1990 · DOI 10.1001/archpedi.1990.02150300127033 · PMID 2346157
- Rivara FP, Thompson DC, Thompson RS et al. The Seattle Children's Bicycle Helmet Campaign: changes in helmet use and head injury admissions. Pediatrics 1994;93(4):567-9 evaluation · 1994 · DOI 10.1542/peds.93.4.567 · PMID 8134210
Research notes
Created 2026-10-22 by OpenAlex literature mining (openalex-deep pass); evidence level, outcome and findings are paraphrased from the evaluation abstracts, full texts not read. No credits: no page naming an agency was checked. Sponsor wording is approximate: the abstracts name only 'a coalition of health, bicycle, and helmet industry organizations'; Harborview's lead role is from secondary knowledge. Channel list is a best guess for a multifaceted campaign; confirm in Bergman 1990. Seattle later passed helmet ordinances (not checked).
Record cases/seattle-childrens-bicycle-helmet-campaign.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign