Fire and Life Safety Education Program

 

 

 

 

Fire and Fall Prevention for Older Adults

Remembering When: A Fire and Fall Prevention Program for Older Adults™, was developed by the NFPA Center for High-Risk Outreach and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help older adults live safely at home for as long as possible.

• Fact: At age 65, older adults are twice as likely to be killed or injured by fires or falls compared to the population at large.
• Fact: Thirty percent of people age 65 and older are involved in falls each year, the leading cause of death from unintentional injury in the home.
• Fact: In the U.S. and Canada, adults age 65 and older make up about 12 percent of the population – and their numbers are increasing.

Remembering When is centered around 16 key safety messages – eight fire prevention and eight fall prevention – developed by experts and practitioners from national and local safety organizations as well as through focus group testing in the high-fire-risk states of Alaska, Arkansas, and Mississippi, and in Cleveland and Atlanta.

Because no single agency can be responsible for reaching every older adult in your community, Remembering When was designed to be implemented by a coalition comprising the local fire department, service clubs, social and religious organizations, retirement communities, and others. Together, members of the coalition can decide how to best approach the local senior population: through group presentations, during home visits, and/or as part of a smoke alarm installation and fall intervention program.