The Hidden Global Crisis Nobody Talks About: Childhood Drowning | Acacia Landfield - Associate Director, Principal Investigator, and Director of Policy & Implementation Science - Drowning Research & Injury Prevention Policy Institute (DRIPPI)

Send us Fan MailDrowning is the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4 in multiple countries - yet it receives only a fraction of the attention of other public health crises. Why?Acacia Landfield is Associate Director, Principal Investigator, and Director of Policy & Implementation Science at The Drowning Research & Injury Prevention Policy Institute ( DRIPPI - https://www.drippi.org/ ), a multidisciplinary nonprofit consortium focused on reducing drowning deaths through research, education, systems thinking, and policy innovation.Acacia brings together an unusually broad background spanning public health, international diplomacy, education, implementation science, and aquatic safety. A lifelong swim coach and water safety educator, she has spent more than 25 years working across injury prevention, public policy, and community education, with a mission to address one of the world’s most overlooked public health crises: childhood drowning.Acacia's work focuses on what she calls “universal basic aquatic competency” - the idea that early, gentle, developmentally informed water exposure can fundamentally change drowning outcomes across entire populations. Her research explores everything from breathing mechanics and motor learning in the water to the unintended downstream effects of flotation devices and inequities in aquatic infrastructure.Acacia is also helping reframe drowning prevention as part of a much larger conversation around climate resilience, disaster preparedness, urban planning, and health equity. As a 2024 Presidential Road Safety Scholar with the American Public Health Association, and an active contributor to climate and disaster preparedness initiatives, she is pushing for drowning prevention to be treated not as a niche issue, but as a core pillar of public health policy worldwide.Before co-founding DRIPPI and launching her research initiative SASE, Acacia held leadership and strategy roles at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and the U.S. Department of State, where she worked on international education, diplomacy, and policy initiatives across multiple countries and sectors.Acacia holds degrees from Yale University and San José State University, is completing her MPH, and plans to pursue a DrPH focused on implementation science and injury prevention.Today, we’ll explore why drowning remains one of the leading causes of death for children worldwide, why many current prevention models may be incomplete, and how a systems-level rethink of aquatic literacy could potentially save tens of thousands of lives each year.#DrowningPrevention #WaterSafety #AquaticLiteracy #Swimming #PublicHealth #ClimateResilience #ChildSafety #AquaticCompetency #DRIPPI #AcaciaLandfield #InjuryPrevention #SwimSafety #Aquatics #GlobalHealth #ClimateChange #ImplementationScience #AquaticEducation #SwimmingLessons #Parenting #HealthPodcast #Longevity #BrainHealth #DisasterPreparedness #HealthInnovation #WaterCompetencySupport the show