Child Occupant Protection Research
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Partners for Child Passenger Safety (PCPS)
PCPS is a unique collaboration between academic institutions (The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, The University of Pennsylvania) and private industry (State Farm Insurance Companies ®) that is the world’s largest child-focused surveillance study of children in crashes. Since 1997, more than 455,000 State Farm policyholders in 13 states have shared their crash experiences with our research team through in-depth telephone interviews and on-site crash investigations. PCPS researchers then use these data to determine the best ways to protect children in crashes, and to translate that knowledge into action through product design improvements and testing recommendations, educational materials, and legislative advocacy. Also visit the PCPS interactive site for parents in English and Spanish at www.chop.edu/carseat
. Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies (CChIPS)
CChIPS is an Industry/University Co-Operative Research Center established through a grant from the National Science Foundation. Through CChIPS, researchers from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and The University of Pennsylvania work side-by-side with industry to conduct translational research that is practical to industry. CChIPS focuses exclusively on advancing the safety of children by facilitating scientific inquiry into child and adolescent injury and translating these findings into commercial applications (such as vehicle or restraint designs) and public education programs.
Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN)
The Center for Injury Research and Prevention at Children’s Hospital serves as the only site primarily focused on pediatric occupants in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s CIREN network. CIREN is a federally supported multidisciplinary research affiliation of clinicians and engineers in academia, industry and government, with the mission of improving the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of motor vehicle crash-related injuries. Pooling data from eight network trauma centers nationwide, CIREN provides a rich database for analysis, providing the foundation needed to effect changes that will reduce deaths, disabilities, and human economic costs through the study of real-world cases of serious injuries sustained in car crashes.
NHTSA Indefinite Quantities Contract: Building on the Findings of Partners for Child Passenger Safety
The Partners for Child Passenger Safety (PCPS) database is the largest available source of information on children in motor vehicle crashes. As a result, the PCPS database is an ideal source data for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to use in determining regulation and policy. NHTSA currently provides funding for the Center to conduct research several “Task Orders” across a wide range of research topics including: Abdominal injury to seat belt-restrained children; improving anthropomorphic test dummies (ATD) to more accurately represent the biokinetics of a human child; examining the risk of injury to center-rear seated children using lap-only or lap-shoulder belts; restraint use patterns based on vehicle model and year; effectiveness of built-in child restraint systems; and developing interventions to improve booster seat use in at-risk populations.
Our Research
