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

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是开发一种新型药物安全帽，能够同时满足儿童耐药性和成人可及性，以减少与幼儿意外用药过量相关的发病率和死亡率。在美国，每小时就有一名6岁以下的儿童住院，每12天就有一名儿童因误服药物而死亡。研究表明，成人不正确使用安全帽（仅部分固定帽或完全关闭帽）会导致幼儿在无人监督的情况下摄入药物。拟议的安全帽将防止幼儿进入，同时也便于老年人理解和操作，与目前的高速制造和分销系统相结合，并具有成本竞争力。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目利用儿童和成人手尺寸之间的人体工程学差异，以及人类产品相互作用行为的差异，开发更有效的儿童耐药包装。目前最先进的安全帽依靠强度和灵活性为基础的机制来限制幼儿进入，但这些方法对成年人来说也往往很难正确使用。该项目旨在将行为和机械产品交互差异转化为安全帽，并提供老年人可及性和儿童抵抗性的定量证据。该一期项目的预期结果是：(1)在儿童抵抗和老年人可达性的阈值范围内进行验证，(2)通过安全和监管措施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.