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How safely are parents strapping their children into car seats? Not safely enough, according to researchers heading up an AUTO21 project looking into children and vehicle safety.
As an intensive care unit nurse, Dr. Anne Snowdon saw more than her
fair share of children killed or seriously injured in car accidents. Vehicle
collisions are the leading cause of death among young children in both
Canada and the United States, and Dr. Snowdon is working to change that
grim fact by teaching both parents and children the proper use of child
safety seats.
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Designing Smarter Dummies
Ford Motor Company is lending its support to an AUTO21 project that's using computer "dummies" to better protect children in frontal collisions.
Led by Dr. Andrew Howard, an orthopedic pediatric surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, the project uses computer-simulated child dummies to investigate how restraint systems can be improved to avoid the specific injuries children often receive in frontal collisions. The goal is to develop simulations that allow for rapid and inexpensive testing of design prototypes.
The project uses real-life case studies and numerical simulation to determine the accuracy of the computer program. Researchers anticipate that the model can be applied later to other types of collisions.
Ford is a key industry supporter of this project, providing more than $50,000 each year over the project's three-year duration.
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"I have looked after an awful lot of kids who had been in vehicle collisions and did not survive," says Dr. Snowdon. "I watched families and parents across the bedside from me crumbling at either the loss of their child or the severity of their injuries."
Dr. Snowdon is an Associate Professor of Nursing for the University of Windsor. She and Dr. Janice Polgar, an Associate Professor in the School of Occupational Therapy at the University of Western Ontario, are the lead researchers on a four-year, $1.7-million research initiative, supported by AUTO21 and DaimlerChrysler Canada, to look at how parents use child safety seats.
Some 80 per cent of child safety seats are installed incorrectly, which can lead to lethal consequences. A common injury is "jack-knifing" - when the child's head and shoulders are violently thrown forward. Another injury, called "seatbelt syndrome" occurs when the lap belt pulls across the soft part of the child's abdomen, causing internal injuries.
As part of the research project, the team surveyed nearly 20,000 parents in the Windsor-Essex region on their knowledge and use of safety seats. The most startling discovery was that children aged between 18 months and four years are often at the greatest risk because parents prematurely move them from one safety system to another.
"The three- and four-year-olds, for example, are being moved to lap and shoulder belts that were essentially designed for adults," says Dr. Snowdon. "Parents think that because their child weighs 40 pounds, it's okay."
The next phase of the project begins this fall with a targeted educational program for both parents and children. The pilot program includes a series of learning tools for children, such as a book and a "safety inspector" kit.
"The main problem is that children grow and develop and need new safety strategies, so parents need ongoing education," Dr. Snowdon explains. "We need a system that will carry parents and children forward and that's what this intervention study is about."
One of the main advantages of AUTO21 and the Networks of Centres of Excellence, says Dr. Snowdon, is that the program offers researchers and graduate students from multiple disciplines a rare opportunity to work together to solve complex problems. This project involves trauma surgeons, nurses, kinesiologists, occupational therapists, mechanical engineers and graduate students from four universities.
"Without the NCE, it would have been very difficult to design an intervention program that will have long-lasting impact on children's lives," she says. "The NCE is also helping train a new breed of researchers who get experience at the graduate level in working with students from several other disciplines."
The results of the intervention program are expected to form the basis of a program in provinces across Canada. DaimlerChrysler Canada plans to incorporate the results into its "Fit for a Kid" safety program.
"For me, this project is not so much about the research or the funding," says Dr. Snowdon. "It's about getting families to use a safety system in a way that prevents a terrible outcome for their child in a car accident."
www.auto21.ca
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