Risk and Injury Severity of Obese Child Passengers in Motor Vehicle Crashes

描述(申请人提供)：儿童肥胖症的流行率一直在大幅上升，因此在美国被认为是一个重要的公共卫生问题。机动车撞车事故是最大的单一风险，并且仍然是全世界儿童死亡的主要原因。使用标准大小的儿童假人对MVC中的儿童乘员伤害机制进行了大量研究。因此，目前的儿童约束系统针对儿童的标准大小进行了优化。然而，肥胖儿童对于特定年龄的儿童安全座椅来说太重了。此外，肥胖儿童在MVC中的风险和伤害机制仍不清楚。本研究的目的是通过计算模型和模拟来调查肥胖儿童MVC后的风险和损伤严重程度。我们假设肥胖儿童的伤害程度将大于非肥胖儿童。我们将使用最先进的建模技术和医学成像处理技术开发生物逼真计算模型，以代表不同BMI范围内的3岁和6岁肥胖儿童。然后，我们将使用肥胖模型和标准虚拟模型在各种MVC场景下进行计算碰撞模拟。预期结果是对包括头部、颈部和胸部在内的局部身体损伤的定量风险评估。肥胖儿童假人的结果将与标准假人的结果进行比较，以检查儿童肥胖对MVC损伤的影响。 公共卫生相关性：应用特定年龄和身体习性的计算模型将揭示动态负荷条件下肥胖儿童的区域性身体损伤。这一努力将促进我们对MVC中肥胖儿童的伤害机制的理解。模型模拟的结果将用于评估和设计儿童约束装置，以改善快速增长的肥胖儿童人口的道路安全。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The prevalence of childhood obesity has been substantially increasing thus it is considered an important public health issue in the United States. Motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) are the single greatest risk and continue to be the leading cause of death for children worldwide. Considerable studies have been conducted on child occupant injury mechanisms in MVCs using standard size child dummies. Consequentially, current child restraint systems were optimized for the standard size of children. However, obese children are too heavy for age-specific child safety seats. Moreover, risk and injury mechanisms of obese children in MVCs are still unknown. The goal of the proposed study is to investigate the risk and injury severity of obese children following MVCs through computational modeling and simulation. We hypothesize that injury levels of obese children will be greater than those of non-obese children. We will develop biofidelic computational models to represent 3- and 6-years-old obese children in various BMI ranges using state-of-the-art modeling techniques and medical imaging processing. We will then perform computational crash simulations with the obese and standard dummy models under a variety of MVC scenarios. The expected outcomes are quantitative risk assessments of regional body injuries including head, neck, and thorax. The results from obese child dummies will be compared to those from the standard dummies to examine the effects of childhood obesity on MVC injuries. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Application of the age- and body habitus-specific computational models will reveal the regional body injuries of obese children under dynamic loading conditions. This effort will advance our understanding of the injury mechanisms for obese children in MVCs. The outcomes from the model simulations would be used to assess and design child restraint devices to improve road safety for the rapidly increasing obese child population.