Principal Investigator: Dennis Durbin, MD, MSCE, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Below is an executive summary of this project. Please note that this summary describes results and interpretation that may not be final. Final interpretation of results will be in the  peer-reviewed literature.

The goal of this study was to develop an initial prototype for a cyberinfrastructure for scientists from a wide range of disciplines to efficiently and effectively collaborate with relevant experts from industry and government to:

1) identify traffic injury problems

2) share resources, data, and expertise to facilitate an in-depth study of their causes

3) promote rapid translation of results into new vehicle and restraint system designs, evidence-based safety regulations, and targeted public health injury prevention programs

The project built on a novel, collaborative partnership between government (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and National Science Foundation), industry (insurers, automotive and restraint systems manufacturers), and academia (The Center for Autonomic Computing (CAC) at The University of Florida and CChIPS). Continued work on this project will promote a more thorough understanding of opportunities for further advanced vehicle safety technology development. The cyberinfrastructure itself has potential commercial value because it can be adapted to support a variety of collaborative research and product development applications beyond pediatric motor vehicle crash injury prevention.