Estimating Car Seat Misuse Rates using Administrative Child Passenger Safety Data

Thomas M. Menino Convention & Exhibition Center 

Car seats are designed to ensure that children are traveling safely in vehicles, but are frequently misused or not used at all, compromising child passenger safety. No nationally representative study provides recent estimates of car seat misuse. The National Digital Car Seat Check Form (NDCF) is an administrative data source that provides a national database of over 300,000 car seat checks performed by licensed child passenger safety technicians, including detailed information on car seat use and misuse, but without any personally identifying information other than zip code. However, it only covers children who attend car seat checks recorded in the NDCF.

By attaching ACS 5-year estimates via county, we can estimate the proportion of families with children under age 8 in a given area that are covered by the NDCF. We also examine other county-level characteristics, such as demographics and commuting behaviors, to assess whether any of these characteristics are associated with car seat check participation or car seat misuse rates. These variables are then used to develop weights for adjusted estimates that better represent misuse rates for all child passengers nationally.

administrative data

weighting

child passenger safety

car seats 

Survey Research Methods Section