# Safety-Enhancing Motor Vehicle Child Safety Seat

> **NIH ALLCDC R44** · MINNESOTA HEALTHSOLUTIONS CORPORATION · 2022 · $863,683

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Minnesota HealthSolutions Corporation (MHS) proposes to develop an enhanced child safety seat that offers
improved crash protection and mitigation against misuse. Child safety seats are installed in vehicles by properly
attaching and tensioning the main seat-to-vehicle anchorage points. Proper use of the seat-to-vehicle
attachments is extremely important in achieving the maximum available reduction of child injuries in motor vehicle
crashes. Unfortunately, the attachments are inconveniently located on child safety seats and difficult to use
properly. Several large studies have observed that only 10% to 40% of children are correctly harnessed into
correctly installed seats. Improper use of child safety seats substantially reduces their effectiveness and is a
major public health concern. The proposed child safety seat will offer enhanced crash protection through an
innovative, inexpensive easy-to-use feature that will improve crash performance and also help mitigate the effects
of seat misuse. We hypothesize that the proposed child safety seat will reduce vehicle crash-related child injuries
and deaths. An interdisciplinary team of researchers has been assembled to define, build, and evaluate a
production prototype system.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10505200
- **Project number:** 5R44CE003388-03
- **Recipient organization:** MINNESOTA HEALTHSOLUTIONS CORPORATION
- **Principal Investigator:** Nick Rydberg
- **Activity code:** R44 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $863,683
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-09-30 → 2023-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10505200

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10505200, Safety-Enhancing Motor Vehicle Child Safety Seat (5R44CE003388-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10505200. Licensed CC0.

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