Teaching children pedestrian safety in virtual reality via smartphone: a noninferiority randomized clinical trial.

Objective: To evaluate whether child pedestrian safety training in a smartphone-based virtual reality (VR) environment is not inferior to training in a large, semi-immersive VR environment with demonstrated effectiveness.

Methods: Five hundred 7- and 8-year-old children participated; 479 were randomized to one of two conditions: Learning to cross streets in a smartphone-based VR or learning in a semi-immersive kiosk VR. The systems used identical virtual environments and scenarios.

Study protocol: developing and evaluating an interactive web platform to teach children hunting, shooting and firearms safety: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Firearms injuries present a major pediatric public health challenge in the United States. This study protocol describes research to develop and then conduct a randomized clinical trial to evaluate ShootSafe, an interactive, engaging, educational website to teach children firearms safety. ShootSafe has three primary goals: (a) teach children basic knowledge and skills needed to hunt, shoot, and use firearms safely; (b) help children learn and hone critical cognitive skills of impulse control and hypothetical thinking needed to use firearms safely; and (c) alter children's perceptions about their own vulnerability and susceptibility to firearms-related injuries, the severity of those injuries, and their perceived norms about peer behavior surrounding firearms use.

Using smartphone technology to deliver a virtual pedestrian environment: usability and validation.

Various programs effectively teach children to cross streets more safely, but all are labor- and cost-intensive. Recent developments in mobile phone technology offer opportunity to deliver virtual reality pedestrian environments to mobile smartphone platforms. Such an environment may offer a cost- and labor-effective strategy to teach children to cross streets safely.

Featured Article: Evaluating Smartphone-Based Virtual Reality to Improve Chinese Schoolchildren's Pedestrian Safety: A Nonrandomized Trial.

Objective: This nonrandomized trial evaluated whether classroom-based training in a smartphone-based virtual reality (VR) pedestrian environment (a) teaches schoolchildren to cross streets safely, and (b) increases their self-efficacy for street-crossing.

Methods: Fifty-six children, aged 8-10 years, attending primary school in Changsha, China participated. Baseline pedestrian safety assessment occurred in the VR environment and through unobtrusive observation of a subsample crossing a street for 11 days outside school.

Virtual reality by mobile smartphone: improving child pedestrian safety.

Background: Pedestrian injuries are a leading cause of paediatric injury. Effective, practical and cost-efficient behavioural interventions to teach young children street crossing skills are needed. They must be empirically supported and theoretically based.

Is More Better? - Night Vision Enhancement System's Pedestrian Warning Modes and Older Drivers.

Pedestrian fatalities as a result of vehicle collisions are much more likely to happen at night than during day time. Poor visibility due to darkness is believed to be one of the causes for the higher vehicle collision rate at night. Existing studies have shown that night vision enhancement systems (NVES) may improve recognition distance, but may increase drivers' workload.