Research In Action
Research In Action
Children dying in hot cars remains a global public health problem. On average, a child dies in a hot car every 10 days in the United States. As a result, millions of dollars have been spent on messaging and public awareness campaigns. Despite this, previous research reports that caregivers overwhelmingly do not believe they are at-risk for their child dying in a hot car and hold a negative bias or stigma towards those they believe are at-risk. These perceptions may underlie why most caregivers have not adopted preventative strategies (e.g., behaviors, technology).
In our recently published study of 1,500 caregivers with a child under 5 years old, almost half of our respondents were unaware of any messaging or public awareness campaigns focused on this topic. Like previous findings, only 12% of caregivers believed there was any risk of their child dying in a hot car; most had negative or judgmental views of caregivers who they believed were at risk.
Despite these attitudes, nearly all (95%) believed it was important for caregivers to receive education about this topic and most (90%) said they would be willing to adopt a risk-mitigating technology. Interestingly, many caregivers said they would view those who adopted risk-mitigating technology as “better” caregivers, and also believed others would view them as “better” caregivers if they did the same.
Historically, campaigns focused on children dying in hot cars have been threat-based, i.e., focused on convincing families that they are at risk. These campaigns do not appear to be working as intended. We believe that the stigma surrounding this topic likely undermines any effect threat-based campaigns may have, since caregivers hold beliefs that only those who are neglectful or otherwise ill-suited for caregiving are at-risk (which is not the type of caregiver they identify as).
These perceptions, along with our finding that caregivers view those who adopt risk-mitigating strategies positively, provides unique insight for future efforts. Specifically, messaging using “positive” themes might be more effective at increasing caregivers’ adoption of risk-mitigating strategies, as it would avoid the negative connotations inevitably evoked by “risk” based messaging. Moving forward, we are excited to work with caregivers to begin developing new communications to address the preventable deaths of children in hot cars.
