Background
Because more children today are riding in age-appropriate restraints, fewer are injured or killed in motor vehicle crashes. These advances in child passenger safety (CPS) came from rigorous child occupant-focused research. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), through its Partners for Child Passenger Safety (PCPS) crash surveillance system, played a leadership role in these successes. PCPS, which collected real world data from 1998 to 2007, helped save thousands of children’s lives by informing new product development, test protocols and regulation, education, policy, and medical practice.
Due to the changing landscape of restraint products, vehicle features, and CPS social norms, a child-focused motor vehicle crash data collection system is still needed to provide direction to government, industry, and the public on how best to protect child occupants in order to sustain and build on progress achieved over the past decade.
Study Aims
Since 2007, CHOP has worked with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to develop a system for collecting supplemental child-specific data as part of the National Automotive Sampling System-General Estimates System (NASS-GES) and Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDS). This system is known as the National Child Occupant Special Study (NCOSS). The overall objective of such a system is to monitor trends in CPS, assess the performance of new safety technologies for children, and serve as a national resource to assist researchers, industry, and policymakers in setting the agenda for CPS in the US.
Feasibility Study (2007-2008)
CIRP researchers initially conducted a study with funding from the Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies (CChIPS) to determine the usefulness, functionality, and feasibility of the concept of a national child occupant surveillance system that relies on federal data sources for cases. 
The Future of Child Passenger Safety Surveillance, a feasibility and justification report, was published in May 2008. Please note that the specifications proposed in this report have been refined over the course of subsequent pilot research.
Pilot Research Projects (2009-present)
Since 2009, the NCOSS research group at CHOP has been conducting pilot studies in collaboration with NHTSA to determine the specific methods by which to collect supplemental child-specific crash data as part of the NASS surveillance system. The first pilot study, funded by a consortium of industry stakeholders including CChIPS, the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers (now Global Automakers), and the Automotive Occupants Restraints Council, created and tested subject contact and consent procedures on a diverse sample of over 600 children in crashes.
The second study, funded by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, involved the creation and validation of the data collection survey that will be used for NCOSS. This study tested the survey on more than 500 parents of injured children who were treated in three Emergency Departments across the US.
Currently, the third and final pilot study, funded by the Toyota Collaborative Safety Research Center, will test enhanced methods of encouraging eligible subjects to participate in NCOSS. At the conclusion of this final pilot study, CIRP researchers will work with NHTSA to develop the procedures required to implement NCOSS on a national scale.