# Safety-Enhancing Motor Vehicle Child Safety Seat

> **NIH NIH R43** · MINNESOTA HEALTHSOLUTIONS CORPORATION · 2020 · $224,953

## 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 head injuries in motor
vehicle crashes. Unfortunately, the attachments are inconveniently located on child safety seats and difficult to use
properly and several large studies have observed that only 10% to 20% 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
easy-to-use feature that will improve crash performance and also help mitigate the effects of 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 prototype system.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9905986
- **Project number:** 1R43HD101139-01
- **Recipient organization:** MINNESOTA HEALTHSOLUTIONS CORPORATION
- **Principal Investigator:** Nick Rydberg
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $224,953
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-01-23 → 2021-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9905986

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9905986, Safety-Enhancing Motor Vehicle Child Safety Seat (1R43HD101139-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-29 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9905986. Licensed CC0.

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