NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Amid the controversy over motor vehicle air-bag safety, three new studies confirm seat belts are still the driving public's first defense in the event of a crash.
"Use of a vehicle's lap and shoulder belts is essential to protect an occupant," says a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). "A fully deployed air bag provides supplemental restraint."
The CDC report focuses on the much-publicized deaths of 32 children under age 12 attributed to deployment of passenger-side air bags. "A total of 21 (of these deaths) occurred among children who were unrestrained (by seat belts) or incorrectly restrained," note the CDC. Another nine kids died when placed in rear-facing child-safety seats in the front of the vehicle, a practice which the CDC have long discouraged.
According to researchers, only 2 of the 32 deaths occurred in properly restrained children. For this reason, the agency is urging that kids under age 12 always ride in the back seat, with their seat belts fastened.
A related study published in this week's Annals of Emergency Medicine reports the case of a 4' 11", 17-year-old woman who died as a result of air-bag deployment in a low-speed accident in Washington state.
The cause of death was determined to be a skull fracture brought on by the explosive force of the deploying air bag. The woman had not been wearing her seat belt, and had adjusted her car seat as close to the steering wheel as possible to compensate for her height.
"The far-forward seat position, in combination with short stature and lack of seat-belt use, increases the risk of injury," investigators concluded, because of the proximity of the initial burst of air-bag expansion.
At the same time, they note that the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) reports nine other women under 5' 4" have been killed by deploying air bags.
Given this information, the authors of the report say "it may be appropriate to warn short drivers of the increased risk."
Another study in the same journal confirms the importance of seat belts in preventing crash deaths and serious injury.
Researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY), Stonybrook, New York, say theirs is the first study to measure seat-belt effectiveness no matter what the extenuating circumstances of a crash.
After studying the records of 1,446 crash victims, investigators found that seat-belt use "reduced the likelihood of hospital admission by 33%, the likelihood of severe injury by 61%, the likelihood of surgery by 48%, and the likelihood of major surgery or death by 86%."
The SUNY group say their results held even after factors like crash speed and vehicle damage were taken into account.
The study urges that the government and auto industry do more to encourage seat-belt use, since "overall compliance is only 62%, far short of the 85% target in the nation's health goals for the year 2000."
SOURCE: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (1996;45(49):1673-1676), Annals of Emergency Medicine (1996;627-633, 722-724)
