Safeguarding Children in Cars: New Data Analysis Provides Insight
Westat is working to leverage new car seat data to provide additional insights into child passenger safety. The data is captured from the National Digital Car Seat Check Form (NDCF). The NDCF is a free tool available to 43,000+ certified child passenger safety technicians (CPSTs) to input data collected at car seat check events via a web-based platform or a mobile app.
Westat’s Elizabeth Petraglia, Ph.D., presented on the analysis of the first year of data from the NDCF. See her presentation on the National Child Passenger Safety Board website: Findings from the National Digital Car Seat Check Form (NDCF): Year One.
Initial analysis provided insight into common misuse issues with car seats. Once fully analyzed data collected can
- Inform the development of educational materials
- Identify gaps in community programming
Some car seat and automobile manufacturers have begun considering this data, which may influence engineering and designing products in an effort to organically reduce field misuse and increase car seat and vehicle compatibility.
