Minnesota HealthSolutions Corporation — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: NICHD

Description

Project Summary Abstract Minnesota HealthSolutions CorporationMHSproposes to develop a child safety seat with a novel intuitive singlestep harness system to improve the rate of proper harnessing of children into child safety seatsChildren are harnessed into child safety seats via apoint harness with shoulder straps that buckle at the crotchThe entire harness assembly must be properly tensioned to ensure safetyLoose harnesses are a common misuse in child safety seatsSeveral large studies have observed that onlytoof children are correctly harnessed into correctly installed seatsImproper use of child restraints substantially reduces their effectiveness and is a major public health concernThe proposed child safety seat will utilize a familiar and intuitive system to improve proper use of the child safety seat harnessWe hypothesize that a child safety seat that provides an intuitive and easy touse harness system will significantly improve the rate of proper child safety seat usage and reduce vehicle crashrelated child injuries and deathsAn interdisciplinary team of researchers has been assembled to definebuildand evaluate a prototype system Project Narrative Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of unintentional morbidity and mortality among children in the United States and a leading cause of brain injuryA total ofchildren agedyears or younger died as a result of unintentional motor vehicle traffic crashes fromand hundreds of thousands more were injuredWe aim to develop a significantly easier to use single step harness system that improves child safety seats and better protects children riding in motor vehicles