Charlie’s House Virtual Safety Experience: Exploring Interactive Strategies to Broaden Reach of Household Safety Education

Richard Gist, PhD
Laura Kemerling, MSN, RN, C-NPT, CPST
Bob Renton
Rohan Akhouri, MD, MPH
Katie Macmillan, MD

Residential injuries to children result in more than 4 million ED visits annually, representing nearly 40% of total ED visits; more than half a million are moderate to severe with nearly 75,000 admissions resulting (1). Charlie’s House, the nation’s only safety demonstration house, addresses a wide range of household safety matters through immersive demonstrations but the program’s reach is severely limited by the necessity of visiting a single, fixed location—a common limitation of many safety outreach programs. Charlie’s House Virtual Safety Experience (VSE) delivers a similar set of experiences in the context of a readily accessible, highly interactive online experience usable in a variety of digital media devices.

Amazon/AWS partnered with Charlie’s House to create a series of interactive virtual experiences that reconstructs much of the information presented in a physical tour of Charlie’s House. Each element was reviewed by a panel of safety professionals to identify the risk factors, place it into a relatable context, and provide simple, straight-forward mitigation strategies that can be implemented with limited effort or expense. The beta version was released at the International Consumer Product Health and Safety Organization’s (ICPHSO) 2024 International Symposium in Brussels, Belgium for broader expert input, and the final version was released in February 2025 at the ICPHSO Annual Symposium in Orlando, Florida.

The beta version had 57 downloads with 11 individuals providing feedback and suggestions through a short, voluntary survey. More than 2,070 downloads had been recorded as of May 2025. Anecdotal feedback from users has been overwhelmingly positive, including successful in situ utilization by home visiting professionals, child protective services, and other outreach personnel. Amazon/AWS provides additional assistance with platform expansion and dissemination. Several other retail and specialty platforms are exploring active partnerships as well; this broadening will enable implementing “click through” pathway capabilities, allowing consumers to compare products available from various vendors and promoting mitigation strategies. Such features potentially highlight Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) or similar safety certifications, empowering consumer action while salience is highest. Subsequently, digital output analytics will facilitate moving to more definitive outcomes involving mitigation devices added to one’s home.

The unique partnership between Amazon/AWS and Charlie’s House has facilitated development of a state-of-the-art, interactive safety experience with a wide and rapidly expanding range of avenues to deliver household safety instruction, mitigation strategies, and ultimately direct, real-time access to acquire products and devices from an assortment of vendors. Early users find utility in a variety of settings, greatly expanding the reach and the impact of Charlie’s House and its experiential safety programs. The feedback from users helped refine informational and operational aspects of the platform. Regional grant funding will be supporting further development of automobile, bicycle, and pedestrian elements, including enhancements to analytics functions; additional partners are exploring opportunities for participation and support.

1. Download and interact with the Charlie’s House Virtual Safety Experience.
2. Explore the features of the platform and its potential applications in improving household safety.
3. Examine the benefits of partnership between safety related agencies/organizations and vendors/providers of various products to expand reach and impact of information delivery to caregivers.