Oh Canada… We Have Work To Do
Kacy Cleveland, University of Louisville, Louisville KY

According to Raynald Marchand, the general manager of Canada Safety Council, Canada does not keep a record of how many children die from vehicular heat strokes. This is due to the fact that the deaths either go unreported or fatalities occur several days later and the cause of death is not reported as being from vehicular heat strokes. One death from being in a hot car is too many and should be documented to raise awareness and reduce the number of occurrences each year.

My goal is to research the number of heat-related car deaths among different demographics for each Canadian province to raise awareness and to show that this is not just an issue in the United States. I am working with child hypothermia expert Jan Null from Golden Gate Weather in San Francisco, and hope to develop a thorough analysis of this issue. To do so, available data, reports and news articles will be assessed from 2012 to the present. This information will then be compared to the  Beat the Heat, Check the Backseat, and Look Before You Lock Safety Campaigns in the U.S. By compiling this data and showing its importance, these safety campaigns can be introduced in Canada to raise more meaningful awareness.