# Sensor Network with Active Instructional Content to Prevent Child Safety Seat Misuse

> **NIH NIH R44** · MINNESOTA HEALTHSOLUTIONS CORPORATION · 2020 · $745,409

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Minnesota HealthSolutions (MHS) proposes to develop an innovative child safety seat user engagement system
that aims to actively educate, instruct and alarm caregivers with the goal of preventing critical child safety seat
misuses and injuries to children riding in motor vehicles. Key enabling technologies make the proposed system
technically feasible at this time. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of unintentional morbidity and
mortality in American children. In the past ten years, thousands of children have died in unintentional crashes and
millions more had hospital-treated injuries. Properly utilized child safety seats are the most effective way to protect
young children involved in crashes from serious injury or death and the vast majority of children are seated in child
safety seats. However, several large studies have observed that only 10% to 20% of children are correctly
harnessed into correctly installed seats. Improper use of child restraints substantially reduces their effectiveness
and is a major public health concern. Better systems are needed to improve the rate of proper child safety seat
use. We hypothesize that the proposed child safety seat user engagement system will significantly improve the
rate of proper child safety seat usage and reduce vehicle crash-related child injuries and deaths. An
interdisciplinary team of researchers has been assembled to define, build, and evaluate feasibility- and production-
prototype systems in phase I and phase II, respectively. The phase II production-prototype development will be
completed in a rigorous quality-controlled design and testing process to ensure a safe and effective product is
produced.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10028338
- **Project number:** 4R44HD100278-02
- **Recipient organization:** MINNESOTA HEALTHSOLUTIONS CORPORATION
- **Principal Investigator:** Sara Seifert
- **Activity code:** R44 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $745,409
- **Award type:** 4N
- **Project period:** 2020-09-01 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10028338

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10028338, Sensor Network with Active Instructional Content to Prevent Child Safety Seat Misuse (4R44HD100278-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10028338. Licensed CC0.

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