Furniture Safety Week Slated for October 7-11, 2024

Furniture World News Desk on 9/5/2024

Furniture-related incidents are not among the leading causes of childhood injuries in the home, and that leads many safety advocates to label furniture a “hidden hazard.”

It is a toddler’s unexpected step up on an open drawer; the sudden entanglement of an improvised Superman cape on the ladder of a bunk bed; the inviting naptime shelter underneath grandpa’s reclined chair – these are the innocent and unforeseen actions that sometimes lead to tragic consequences due to “hidden hazards” that are in plain view of even the most watchful parents.

Furniture Safety Week, slated October 7-11, aims to raise awareness of furniture-related hazards and reduce the number of incidents, particularly those involving children. Sponsored by the American Home Furnishings Alliance and its Alliance4Safety, the initiative aims to engage all segments of the home furnishings industry, along with child safety advocates and organizations, in public conversation about furniture and home safety.

“Manufacturers, importers, retailers, e-commerce sites, interior designers, sales reps and design influencers, along with trade and consumer media, all have a role to play in this effort,” explains AHFA Vice President of Communications Patricia Bowling. “By concentrating furniture safety messages during one defined time period, we hope to amplify our voices and bring common home hazards out to the open.”

Companies can sign up to participate by clicking the link below and entering contact information. AHFA will send updates to these company contacts throughout September, including notifications as resources are added to the online Furniture Safety Week toolkit.

FURNITURE SAFETY WEEK PARTICIPANT

“Support for the campaign is growing among a wide variety of groups that are helping us build participation,” Bowling notes. Child safety advocates in Parents Against Tip-Overs (www.parentsagainsttipovers.org), Kids in Danger (www.kidsindanger.org), and the International Association for Child Safety (www.iafcs.org) are encouraging their members to participate. The Home Furnishings Association (www.myhfa.org), Furniture First Buying Group (www.furniturefirst.org), Furniture Marketing Group (www.fmgbuyinggroup.com) and FurnitureDealer.net (www.FurnitureDealer.net) are promoting Furniture Safety Week participation to their retail members. The International Home Furnishings Representatives Association (www.ihfra.org) and Interior Design Society (https://interiordesignsociety.org) also are collaborating by sharing Furniture Safety Week information with their members.

Topics spotlighted by this year’s campaign include:

Furniture tip-over. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reports that 58 children have died since 2013 when a piece of furniture tipped over on them. Another 50 died during this same time period when a TV plus the furniture it was sitting on tipped over. Together these two types of accidents result in the death of at least one child every month.

Bunk beds. An estimated 36,000 children are injured playing on or jumping off bunk beds each year, according to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati.  Boys under 6 years old are injured most often, and children under 3 are more likely to sustain serious injuries.

Reclining furniture. In the last 10 years, eight children have died and many more were injured when they became trapped in or under a reclining chair. As a result, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is calling for a new safety standard for reclining furniture.

Glass tabletops. More than 2.5 million Americans sustain injuries involving glass tabletops every year, according to a 2020 study by Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. The study of 3,000 incidents found most injuries occur among children under age 7 and young adults in their early 20s.

TV tip-over. TV tip-over fatalities have been declining due to the rising popularity of wall-mounting flat screen televisions. Within households that cannot mount, though – including many rentals – unsecured televisions remain a significant hazard. Since 2013, 40 children have died from injuries sustained when a television fell on them. As noted earlier, another 50 died when the TV plus the furniture it was sitting on fell.

Furniture Safety Week will improve consumer awareness of these and other potential home hazards and how to help prevent them. 

About The American Home Furnishings Alliance
The American Home Furnishings Alliance, based in High Point, North Carolina, represents more than 250 leading furniture manufacturers and distributors, plus about 150 suppliers to the furniture industry worldwide. AHFA developed the Alliance4Safety website in 2020 for communicating industry health and safety information related to the Covid-19 pandemic. AHFA expanded the site’s focus in 2023 to include important home health and safety messages for consumers.