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Public health professionals assert that parents could prevent a substantial portion of infant mortality due to unintentional injury (IMUI) by creating a safe environment for the infant. Examples of safe parenting behaviors include attending to a bathing infant, properly securing a child safety seat in a motor vehicle, and removing soft pillows from a crib. The contraction of regional economies, an ambient phenomenon previously reported to affect salutary behaviors, may distract parents from these routine infant monitoring tasks. I test this distraction hypothesis that the monthly incidence of IMUI will vary inversely with the performance of the economy. I retrieve economic data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and use data from the Birth Cohort File on 2 618 752 infants in all 26 metropolitan areas of California. Results support the hypothesis in that a one percent decline in employed persons coincides with an eight percent increase of IMUI in that month. Findings remain robust to control for individual covariates that could confound observed associations. I discuss my findings in relation to the literature concerned with parental distraction, describe other mechanisms through which the economy may affect IMUI, and recommend further investigation.

Public health professionals assert that parents could prevent a substantial portion of infant mortality due to unintentional injury (IMUI) by creating a safe environment for the infant. Examples of safe parenting behaviors include attending to a bathing infant, properly securing a child safety seat in a motor vehicle, and removing soft pillows from a crib. The contraction of regional economies, an ambient phenomenon previously reported to affect salutary behaviors, may distract parents from these routine infant monitoring tasks. I test this distraction hypothesis that the monthly incidence of IMUI will vary inversely with the performance of the economy. I retrieve economic data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and use data from the Birth Cohort File on 2 618 752 infants in all 26 metropolitan areas of California. Results support the hypothesis in that a one percent decline in employed persons coincides with an eight percent increase of IMUI in that month. Findings remain robust to control for individual covariates that could confound observed associations. I discuss my findings in relation to the literature concerned with parental distraction, describe other mechanisms through which the economy may affect IMUI, and recommend further investigation.

This paper presents a detailed numerical model of the human body that can be used to evaluate both safety and comfort aspects of vehicle interiors. The model is based on a combination of rigid body and finite element techniques to provide an optimal combination of computational efficiency and accuracy. All main articulations are implemented and the skin is modelled in detail to provide accurate interactions with the vehicle interior, such as seat, belts, and airbag. The biofidelity of the model has been verified extensively for both crash safety and seating comfort loading, using volunteer and PMHS data. Detailed models of various body parts can be incorporated to study the response of these body parts in more detail. The human models has been used to study and improve vehicle passive safety design for a range of accident scenarios, in particular for those loading scenarios where the current crash dummies are considered insufficiently biofidelic. Ongoing developments include further enhancement of scalability, injury predictive capabilities, and modularity of detailed component models. The human model is aimed to provide a virtual testing tool for integrated safety and ergonomics design. The human model could also be applied in sports and personal protection design.