Development of a US Child-Focused Motor Vehicle Crash Surveillance System: A Pilot Study.

Current motor vehicle crash (MVC) surveillance systems, in particular the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS), either do not contain sufficient numbers of children, or do not contain child-specific data needed to support policy and prevention efforts. The objective of this pilot study was to develop and evaluate methods that could be utilized for supplemental child-specific data collection on a sample of cases identified through the NASS-GES program. Procedures were developed to identify a sample of police accident reports (PARs) involving child occupants for supplemental collection of child-specific data via three survey modes: phone, web-based and hard-copy self administered. Contact was initiated with 650 eligible parent drivers and surveys were completed by 156 (24.0%). Response rates were highest for telephone-based surveys (41.0% of those initially contacted by phone). Surveys were completed via the web by only 6.1% of those invited to do so. Overall agreement between survey and PAR data was good to excellent. Results of this pilot study indicate that creating procedures to identify cases for supplemental child-specific data collection based on the NASS-GES system is feasible. In order to sustain a supplemental child-focused data collection system that relies on identification of cases from NASS-GES, efforts must be made to enhance contact procedures in order to optimize response rates.