NEW HAVEN, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--What if there was a way to prevent a leading cause of childhood death, but three out of four of us were doing it wrong? The startling truth is that 75 percent of car seats in the U.S. are installed incorrectly.1 In 2014, there were over 9,000 vehicle crashes involving children age 12 or younger across Connecticut. 2
Today, Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital announced the launch of Buckle Up for Life, the national injury prevention program from Toyota and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. During the six-week program, trained specialists will work closely with families in the New Haven area to educate them about all aspects of child passenger safety. Families in need will receive free car seats and will be matched with certified child passenger safety technicians to learn how to install them properly.
“Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital is pleased to partner with Buckle Up for Life to ensure that parents and caregivers in our communities are given the proper education to improve the safety of our most precious cargo: Children,” said Pina Violano, PhD, RN, Manager, Injury Prevention & Community Outreach at Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital.
“We know from our work with thousands of families across the country over more than a decade that installing car seats can be a frustrating experience, but we also know that getting it right saves children’s lives,” said Gloria Del Castillo, child passenger safety expert at Cincinnati Children’s and senior outreach specialist for Buckle Up for Life. “That’s why we are so excited to partner with Yale-New Haven Children’s to bring Buckle Up for Life’s critical safety information to parents and caregivers in the New Haven community.”
Buckle Up For Life’s approach works. In one city alone, the program nearly tripled the use of proper car seats in participating families. On average, community organizations that have offered the program have observed a marked improvement in participants’ auto safety behaviors, including:
- The rate of children unrestrained in cars decreased from one in four to fewer than one in 20.
- The rate of children in car seats increased from roughly one in four to one in two; and
- A 13 percent increase in use of seat belts for adults, from 68 percent to 81 percent.
“Toyota has always been deeply focused on helping families get places more safely,” said Michael Goss, Vice President, External Affairs and Communications Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc. “Together with our partners at Yale-New Haven Children’s and Cincinnati Children’s, we look forward to offering Buckle Up for Life in New Haven to help families better protect young passengers.”
Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital is announcing the launch of Buckle Up for Life in conjunction with its annual free car seat check event, which will be held on November 4 at 1:00-4:00 PM at the Eli Whitney Regional Vocational Technical School.
About Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital
Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital (YNHCH) offers Connecticut’s largest and most comprehensive array of maternity and pediatric services. With 213 beds, YNHCH includes neonatal intensive care units, a pediatric intensive care unit, a 24-hour pediatric emergency room and a pediatric surgery center. YNHCH, with campuses in New Haven and Bridgeport, is part of the nationally recognized Yale-New Haven Hospital, a 1,541-bed not-for-profit teaching hospital affiliated with Yale School of Medicine. YNHH’s York Street campus and associated ambulatory sites are Magnet-designated by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. In addition to its inpatient units, YNHCH has two Pediatric Specialty Centers in New Haven and others in Norwalk, Greenwich and Trumbull to provide specialty care to children closer to their communities. www.ynhch.org
About Buckle Up For Life
Buckle Up for Life is a national injury prevention program for families, created by Toyota and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in 2004, to help keep child passengers safe. The program teaches parents and children about the proper use of car seats and seat belts and provides free car seats to families in need. Through partnerships with the leading pediatric hospitals in the country, Buckle Up for Life has reached more than 23,000 people in 14 cities, including New York, Memphis, Phoenix, Chicago, Cincinnati, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Orange Country, and San Antonio – and expands to new cities each year. In one city alone, the program nearly tripled the use of proper car seats in participating families. Toyota has provided funding for over 40,000 car seats for families in need.
1 Durbin, D. R. (2011). Technical report—Child passenger safety . Pediatrics, 127(4). Advance online publication. doi:10.1542/peds.2011-0215; NHTSA January 2004 report “Misuse of Child Restraints”
2 UConn Crash Data Repository (2010-2014)
