Minnesota Health Solutions (MHS) proposes to develop an advanced instrumented child safety seat. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for American children. Child safety seats are the most effective way to prevent death and serious injury to children in crashes, and yet these critically important tools are misused in up to 90% of installations. The proposed instrumented child safety seat will measure, record, and display three critical aspects of proper seat use. The efficacy of the proposed instrumented child safety seat to improve proper seat installation rates will be evaluated in a human study during phase II.
The societal benefit of the proposed instrumented child safety seat is that, if successful, it will inexpensively and easily improve the safety of all children riing in automobiles by reducing the prevalence of seat installation errors. The population of interest for this device is virtually all child safety seat installers/users, which includes parents, grandparents, and child care providers.
