Presenter Profile
Joe Colella
Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association
Joe Colella is the Director of Child Passenger Safety for the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association. He has been a child safety advocate for three decades, and has assisted with related education in 48 states and 5 additional countries. His many roles include being a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers child restraint committee, the editorial board for Safe Ride News, and co-leading the Safe Kids in Automated Vehicles Alliance.
Presentations
Child Passenger Safety: A Public Health Priority
Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of injury, hospitalization and fatality for children, and differences in protection needs at various child development levels complicate injury mitigation. Comprehensive correction efforts, largely driven by the transportation safety community, have significantly decreased fatalities and reduced nonfatal injuries in recent decades, but additional work is demonstrably needed. This session highlights relevant research, uses graphic and video demonstration, and provides context to illustrate how public health prioritization, continuing research, grassroots advocacy, updated policy and restraint development must jointly contribute to improving child occupant safety.
1. Enhance understanding of crash dynamics in relation to child occupants
2. Illustrate evidence-based child restraint selection and transition recommendations
3. Discuss common and potential injuries among unrestrained, inappropriately restrained and correctly restrained occupants
4. Improve understanding of how the E’s of injury prevention intersect with child passenger safety