Different technologies have been developed to help parents and caregivers address pediatric vehicular heatstroke (PVH), where a child dies from overheating in an unattended motor vehicle. Researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) identified exemplar PVH scenarios that have occurred during recent years and studied the different technologies designed to prevent them. The study found that while certain technologies may be effective for different scenarios, no single technology is effective in preventing all the scenarios that lead to pediatric vehicular heatstroke, suggesting a combination of interventions is required to achieve the best prevention strategy.
The findings were recently published by the American Journal of Public Health.
Since 1998, more than 1,000 children have died due to PVH, with an average of 37 children in the United States each year. In addition to continued awareness campaigns for caregivers, various vehicle, child restraint, mobile-app and after-market technologies have been designed to help address this issue. These include indirect detection technologies (Bluetooth device connection, GPS-based reminders), direct detection technologies (pressure sensors and radio frequency sensors that detect breathing and heartbeat), alerting technology (warning chimes/noises, primary contacts notified) and intervention features (air conditioning on, doors unlocking).
To determine the effectiveness of these technological interventions, researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) at CHOP systematically reviewed cases of children dying in hot vehicles to identify “exemplar” scenarios. They assessed whether various technological interventions available would have prevented these deaths.
“When we considered the variety of scenarios in our study, we found that no single technology would have prevented all cases we identified,” said co-lead study author Jalaj Maheshwari, MSE. “This tragic situation can happen to anyone, and we feel that multiple technologies working in tandem are the best way to reduce the number of vehicular heatstroke deaths that occur.”
The researchers identified 10 exemplar scenarios across 354 recent instances of vehicular heatstroke and found that the technologies’ effectiveness varied drastically. For example, carbon dioxide, optical, pressure, ultrasonic, and radar/radio-frequency detection technologies would have been successful in detecting children in 80% to 90% of cases.
Notifying a secondary contact was noted as an effective measure across all scenarios if overheating was due to children being left behind intentionally or unintentionally by caregivers. Alerting by sounding the vehicle’s horn may also have been effective but only if people were nearby who could intervene.
Kristy B. Arbogast emphasized education alongside technology: “We need to continue making sure caregivers are educated about the real danger posed by overheating vehicles.”
This study was supported by NSF-founded Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies at CHOP and The Ohio State University.
