Principal Investigator: Jalaj Maheshwari, MSE, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia 

Pediatric vehicular heatstroke (PVH), or children overheating in cars, is the second leading cause of death (behind motor vehicle crashes) to children that occur around or in cars. Studies on PVH have primarily concentrated on fatalities, but little is known about non-fatal cases of children left behind in vehicles. This project utilizes a novel PVH database using publicly available data spanning 36 months. Analyzing these data will be an important step toward understanding near-miss PVH cases, their circumstances, their distribution across the US, and how they are similar to/differ from PVH fatality data. The findings will provide the basis for the development of technological solutions for optimizing protection for pediatric occupants and provide valuable knowledge about real-world cases of children left behind in hot cars.