Are child passengers bringing up the rear? evidence for differential improvements in injury risk between drivers and their child passengers

Winston, Flaura K.; Xie, Dawei; Durbin, Dennis R.; Elliott, Michael R.

Affiliations

¹Center for Injury Research and Prevention at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA

²Division of General Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

³Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

⁴Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

⁵Department of Biostatistics, and Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Abstract

Since nearly half of children fatally injured in automobile crashes were restrained, optimizing occupant protection systems for children is essential to reducing morbidity and mortality. Data from the Partners for Child Passenger Safety study were used to compare the differential injury risk between drivers and their child passengers in the same crash, with a focus on vehicle model year. A matched cohort design and conditional logistic regression model were used in the analyses. Overall, injury risk for drivers was higher than for children, but the risk difference was largest for the oldest model year vehicles, particularly for children aged 4-8 in seat belts. While drivers experienced significant benefits in safety with increasing model years, children restrained by safety belts alone derived less safety benefit from newer vehicles.

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Cited By (5)

Year	Entry
2019	Jermakian JS, Edwards MA, Fein S, Maltese MR. Factors Contributing to Serious and Fatal Injuries in Belted Rear-Seat Occupants in Frontal Crashes. Arlington, VA: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety; April 2019.
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2019	Sarfare S, Maheshwari J, Belwadi A. Analysis of the interaction between child occupants and deploying frontal passenger airbag in simulated frontal crashes. In: Proceedings of the 26th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 10-13, 2019; Eindhoven, Netherlands.
2010	Bilston LE, Du W, Brown J. A matched-cohort analysis of belted front and rear seat occupants in newer and older model vehicles shows that gains in front occupant safety have outpaced gains for rear seat occupants. Accid Anal Prev. November 2010;42(6):1974-1977.
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