Child Passenger Safety and Behavioral Science Research
Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death and disability among all children, and result in more than 400,000 injuries to children less than 18 years old annually. The Center has been investigating child passenger safety and behavioral science for more than two decades, when its founders identified the deployment of front passenger air bags as a cause of fatal injury for children, even in minor crashes.
Because children are not simply "small adults," there remains a need for research into age-appropriate child restraint systems, vehicle designs for optimal child protection, and best practices for child passenger safety practices, including how to help parents and caregivers properly use child restraint systems.
Research Projects
- Congruency of Crash and Hospital Reported Injuries Among Child Passengers
In this study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers from the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have found discrepancies between crash reports and hospital data that might paint an incomplete or inaccurate picture of how crashes impact the safety of child passengers. Using data from the New Jersey Safety and Health Outcomes (NJ-SHO) Data Warehouse, they identified child passengers under the age of 13 involved in a crash from 2017 through 2019 and compared their injuries documented in both crash and hospital reports.
The researchers found that crash reports often report inaccurate injury locations and tend to overstate the severity of injuries experienced. Improving the quality of injury information reported by crash reports can help researchers determine the effectiveness of different child restraint systems (CRS), guide policy, and update recommendations to keep child passengers safe.
Read a blog post about the research.
Read a press release about the research.
Principal Investigators: Emma Sartin, PhD, MPH, CPST; Rachel K. Myers, PhD
Funding: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant K99HD10592 and the Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies (CChIPS)
- Parental Driving Behaviors of Child Passengers Ages 4-10 Years
This study aims to create a broader picture related to parental driving behaviors and the implications on child passengers and, ultimately, teen drivers. By investigating factors influencing booster seat use, misuse and non-use, as well as developing an understanding of how risky driving behaviors like distracted driving may be associated with child passenger safety practices, more precise targets for interventions for parents as drivers can be developed.
Read a blog post about the research.
Principal Investigator: Catherine McDonald, PhD, RN, FAAN
Funding: Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies (CChIPS)
Watch this video from Jalaj Maheshwari, MSE about how our researchers are using computational modeling in child occupant protection research:
