Evaluation of a drowning prevention campaign in a Vietnamese American community

To address Washington State’s high pediatric fatal drowning rates in Asian children, especially Vietnamese, we conducted and evaluated a community water safety campaign for Vietnamese American families. Working with community groups, parks departments and public health, we disseminated three messages (learn to swim, swim with a lifeguard, and wear a life jacket) in Vietnamese media and at events, increased access to free/low cost swim lessons and availability of lifeguarded settings and life jackets in the community. Parents completed 168 pre- and 230 post-intervention self-administered, bilingual surveys. Significantly more post-intervention compared to pre-intervention respondents had heard water safety advice in the previous year, (OR 8.75 (5.07, 15.09)) and had used lifeguarded sites at lakes and rivers (OR 2.3 (1.04,5.08)). The campaign also increased community assets: availability of low-cost family swim lessons, free lessons at beaches, low cost life jacket sales, life jacket loan kiosks in multiple languages, and more Asian, including Vietnamese, lifeguards.