SBIR Phase I: Study for a new design of child resistance packaging

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to develop a novel medication safety cap capable of simultaneous child-resistance and adult-accessibility to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with unintentional medication overdoses by young children. Every hour a young child under the age of 6 is hospitalized, and every 12 days a child dies in the United States due to unintentional medication ingestion. Studies have shown that improper use of safety caps by adults (only partially securing the cap or leaving it off entirely) contributes to unsupervised medication ingestions by young children. The proposed safety cap would prevent access by young children while also being easy to understand and operate by older senior adults, integrate with current high- speed manufacturing and distribution systems, and be cost-competitive. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project leverages the ergonomic differences between child and adult hand sizes, with differences in human-product interaction behavior, to develop more effective child-resistant packaging for medications. Current state-of-the-art safety caps rely on strength and dexterity-based mechanisms to restrict access for young children, but these methods are also often difficult for adults to use properly. This project seeks to leverage the behavioral and mechanical product interaction differences into a safety cap and provide quantitative evidence of both senior adult accessibility and child- resistance. The expected outcomes of this Phase I project is a design that is (1) validated to function within the thresholds of child-resistance and senior adult accessibility, and (2) pass safety and regulatory measures.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.