TY - JOUR T1 - SAfety effects of drawstring requirements for children's upper outerwear garments AU - Rodgers GB, Topping JC Y1 - 2012/07/01 N1 - 10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.1269 JO - Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine SP - 651 EP - 655 VL - 166 IS - 7 N2 - Objective  To evaluate the effectiveness of the requirements of the voluntary safety standard for drawstrings on children's upper outerwear garments in preventing child deaths resulting from drawstring entanglement.Design  An interrupted time series design. Annual estimates of drawstring-related child deaths were developed for the study period of January 1985 to December 2009. A Poisson regression model for rate data was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the drawstring requirements during the postintervention period.Setting  United States.Subjects  Children aged 14 years and younger.Intervention  The application of the drawstring requirements of the voluntary standard that were adopted in 1997.Main Outcome Measure  The estimated percentage reduction in the drawstring-related child mortality rate associated with the application of the drawstring requirements.Results  The drawstring requirements of the voluntary standard were associated with a 90.9% (95% CI, 83.8%-96.1%) reduction in the drawstring-related mortality rate. This suggests the prevention of about 50 child deaths from 1997, when the voluntary standard was adopted, through the end of our study period in 2009.Conclusions  The requirements of the voluntary safety standard for drawstrings have been highly effective in preventing deaths resulting from the entanglement of drawstrings in children's upper outerwear garments. SN - 1072-4710 M3 - doi: 10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.1269 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.1269 ER -