Posted on March 22, 2004 at 8:55 a.m.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — Occupants in motor vehicles equipped with side air bags had a significant reduction in the risk of head and thoracic injuries after side impact collisions, according to a study published in the March issue of the Journal of Trauma. The study, done by researchers at UAB’s (University of Alabama at Birmingham) Center for Injury Sciences, indicates that the protection offered by side air bags is at least as great as the protection afforded by seat belts and greater than the protection offered by frontal air bags in frontal collisions.
“This is the first study to look at the specific types of injuries side air bags were designed to protect against, those to the head and thorax,” says Gerald McGwin, Jr., MS, Ph.D., associate director for research at UAB’s Center for Injury Sciences and lead author of the paper. “As more vehicles are equipped with side air bags, we anticipate that the impact of head and thoracic injury after side impact collisions will be reduced.”
McGwin’s team examined injury results of 431,889 occupants in vehicles that were involved in a side impact collision between 1995 and 2001. The data was obtained from the Crashworthiness Data System, part of the National Automotive Sampling System, run by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Occupants in a vehicle with side air bags were three times less likely to have a head injury and more than four times less likely to have a thoracic injury than occupants in vehicles without side air bags.
“Although less frequent that frontal collisions, side impacts tend to be much more lethal, as there is very little protection in the sides of a vehicle” says McGwin. “Additionally, there is evidence that seat belts are not as effective in preventing injury in side impacts as they are in frontal impacts.”
Side air bags come in several different forms, according to McGwin, including those that deploy from the door, from the seat or from the door frame. Some are designed to provide protection primarily to the head, and others provide protection primarily to the thorax.
McGwin does not recommend that automobile manufacturers be required to equip all new vehicles with side air until additional research has confirmed the current findings.
The only other peer-reviewed research published on the effectiveness of side air bags showed that they did not reduce mortality in a side impact collision. That research was also done by UAB’s Center for Injury Sciences.