Two quick freakonomics questions

I need to write a brief (very brief) rebuttal to someone re: Freakonomics. I read a ton of threads on the subject, but want to verify two things that I gleaned so that I don't cite anything incorrectly.

1) The 2005 study was not peer-reviewed, correct?

2) Someone noted that the study's author's kids continued to ride in carseats post-study -- is that really something we know, and if so, how is it sourced?

I'll be hugely appreciative to anyone who can answer either or both of those.

Thanks

I don't have an answer to your questions but was wondering if you wouldn't mind emailing me your rebuttal when you are finished? I am very interested.

I also don't know the answers to those specific questions, but my standard response is: Yes, if children sat as still as crash-test dummies and didn't have soft abdomens, that would probably be a perfect solution.

The blog may have the answers... http://carseatblog.com/88/the-never-ending-debate-carseats-vs-seatbelts/ and http://carseatblog.com/4857/its-super-freaky-yow/

Thanks, Jools, I had read the second but not the first. It gave me the answer to question #1 (at least current as of 2008,) in that it wasn't published for a long time and then only in an economics publication. If anyone knows that it's been peer reviewed in a medical journal or similar since then, let me know.

I'm still very interested to hear if anyone knows if/how the author's child(ren) are/were restrained. (To me, that speaks volumes on the validity of the study.)

email them and ask, maybe?

I think I said that. Seems like a long time ago now that I saw a photo of their family cars with in FF harness for a child over 2 & another kid in a booster. My brother (who hates "all this carseat crap") even said he read somewhere that they used carseats after toddler age, but I never did much research into it. They may have merely been following state law, but I found it hypocritical nonetheless.

Sent from my iPhone using Car-Seat.Org

I might do that. I don't really want to wait too long to reply, though (I've already let it go a day and a half so that I could write a calm and balanced reply, ha ha!)

I did find this note that both authors used carseats past two, so the info is out there *somewhere.* Now just to find the source... (I did some extensive googling but wasn't able to find the picture Papooses referenced.)

Carrie_R said:

I need to write a brief (very brief) rebuttal to someone re: Freakonomics. I read a ton of threads on the subject, but want to verify two things that I gleaned so that I don't cite anything incorrectly.

1) The 2005 study was not peer-reviewed, correct?

Click to expand...

Correct, but a follow-up study was published in an economics journal.

2) Someone noted that the study's author's kids continued to ride in carseats post-study -- is that really something we know, and if so, how is it sourced?

Click to expand...

There was a media article about this a few years ago, but it actually quoted one of the researchers who was an author on the paper, not one of the two main Freakonomics authors. I'll see if I can find it.

Page two of this article-

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/m.../06/29/children_seat_belts_and_safety/?page=1

There may be other interviews I haven't seen. I'm pretty sure at least Mr. Levitt had young kids around the time of his books based on a bio or something I read at the time. You do have to wonder if they were confident enough in their research to ignore their wives and/or the relatively miniscule punitive fine, which is essentially a slap on the wrist in the rare chance you do get caught.

I will add, that in their defense, no one ever disproved their claims based on fatal crashes from the NHTSA FARS statistics. The best that injury prevention researchers could do was use other data or claim that they included or omitted certain types of fatal crashes in some manner that affected the results. Of course, they responded with new data of their own and counter-claimed that their method was superior.

Right, my understanding is that the same stats are being used and extrapolated to prove the intended point.

This is what I've come up with. It's in response to a FB post, reposing the AAP recs and essentially saying, "If you feel like your kids are going to be in child seats forever, don't forget to use common sense, here's an example," and posting the 2005 paper. My target audience are young marrieds, in particular a couple of guys, who do not yet have kids. I think they're mostly balking at the 12yos in boosters. My goal is to not berate, lecture or alienate them, because I think there's a huge teaching opportunity here by reaching people who are not yet parents -- they're not defensive about their parenting and I'm hoping will file this stuff away for the future.

Anyways, if anyone sees any grievous errors let me know. (I wanted it to be short, but clearly I didn't succeed. It's shorter than what I would have liked to say If there's something that can be removed, I'm open to removing it.)


FWIW, the new recs are a restatement of guidelines that have been in place for some time, which suggests to parents to use a booster until their child fits the adult belt properly -- which in *some* kids (not all, or even most) may be as late as 12. The linked study is certainly an interesting read, however it has not been peer-reviewed in a medical journal and has some flaws in it. (The least of not which is that toddlers don't sit perfectly still and stay in the position necessary to be protected by the belt, as a crash test dummy does.) There are numerous other studies (like this one -- http://www2.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/...story/06-05-2006/0004374684&EDATE=Jun+5,+2006) that use the same data set and come up with opposite findings. Also of note: although I'm having difficulty finding adaquete sources, I've read a few reports that the authors' children have and will use car seats, well past their second birthday. That speaks volumes to me.

I have looked at the freakonomics data on several occasions, and the true flaws deal with the data they are using. This data is the same data we are all accessing in part to make statements for car seat usage, for rear-facing and for booster seat recommendations.

The data is all flawed in that we are looking at historical data. It would be unethical and illegal to properly install all car seats and then use human subjects in crash tests, obviously. With the historical data, we cannot control for compliance with correct seat usage or correct installation of the seat. We only know (in most cases) whether one was used or not. (also I think the years of the dataset they used was pretty much pre-LATCH standard on vehicles)

I get the impression that the freakonomic authors are on the same page essentially as many who post on this board: Getting Higher Standards for Child Safety. Some of that includes (like CHOP ED physician data) both qualitative and quantitative data research that looks at traumas, the car seat in the wreck, and interviews the parents to get a better idea of usage. I did read a small study once, which looked at 7(I believe ) accidents with bad car seat installs and described the types of injuries and where the restraint ended up. It was not pretty.
Until there is more controversy surrounding this issue, we won't get the kind of data we want. Like 5 pt harness or HBB? Or crash test results of HBB (which incidently ADAC in Germany does, with only the following us avail. boosters getting passing marks: Rodi XR, SKM and X-fix getting passing marks - although most US avail boosters are not tested by them)

So, I think what I am gearing to say -- is that as a whole we need to push for better research and better research methods. I have always half-heartedly joked, I want to know what over-protective , cautious middle-aged college educated volvo driving with proper CR usage women living in my community's risk is for injury to my children.

I'd probably email them and say - hey instead of turning people off to using CRs -- why not get a groundswell of people demanding better research and standards -- which should be your true agenda anyway? Using a seat belt only is an unsafe practice for a child given the morbidity/mortality rate they publish. The problem is we still havenot been able to either find an appropriate way ensure correct restraint of our collective children or we haven't done the research to show the benefit of CR best practices.

If you couldn't tell, I got on my soap box! Jenny

I don't have the publication in front of me, so I don't want to critique the methodology, but the study was published in the Feb 2008 volume of Review of Economics & Statistics, which is a peer-reviewed journal.

I have my own opinions on the validity of the data, but that's neither here nor there. Proper use is a huge issue and, assuming my memory is correct, was totally ignored as a variable (due to lack of data, not malicious intent).