ArticleJournal of safety research2025
Child restraint misuse: Do parents properly install car seats?
Article in Journal of safety research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Children's Height and Injury Risk With Child Restraint Systems.JAMA network open · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundChild restraints (car seats) reduce risk of pediatric injury in motor-vehicle crashes, but restraint misuse is widely documented, with estimates from the 2000s and 2010s suggesting 70-95% of child restraints are installed or used incorrectly. This study had two primary objectives: (a) present recent data concerning child restraint misuse from a large, national sample in the United States; and (b) explore the types of misuse that are most common, including across different types of installations.
methodsAs part of a larger study, 1,477 individuals who drove vehicles with installed child restraints participated at seven U.S. sites. Booster seats were excluded. Upon arrival for an initial research appointment, restraint installation was assessed by certified technicians using a standardized checklist that yielded an overall score of the percentage of correct components, as well as individual binary scores (correct vs. incorrect) for each checklist component and an overall binary score (100% correct or not) for the entire installation.
resultsOverall, 85.25% (SD = 11.91) of restraint installation/use components were correct; that percentage was highest for rear-facing, LATCH or lower-anchor installations (89.07%, SD = 8.57) and lowest for forward-facing seatbelt installations (M = 76.50%, SD = 13.59). Just 11.9% of all restraints were installed and used entirely correctly. Inspection of individual installation/use components indicated most items were correct 95-100% of the time. However, some items had poorer scores, and a handful were correct less than half the time for some installation types. DISCUSSION: Replicating findings from years past, few child restraints were installed and used completely correctly. However, a large portion of the installation/use components were correct, and thus children riding in the restraints were considerably safer than if unrestrained. Continued multifaceted efforts to reduce child restraint misuse are advised. These efforts should be shared by vehicle and restraint manufacturers, public health professionals, government and non-profit agencies, and parents themselves.
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Registered trials
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