SCIENCE SAYS NO LAB LEAK

Bat virus evolution suggests wildlife trade sparked COVID-19 virus emergence in humans

Study finds that SARS-CoV-2 arrived in Wuhan, China too quickly for its bat hosts to have carried it there — a dispersal pattern consistent with that of SARS-CoV-1, which caused the 2002 SARS outbreak

University of California - San Diego

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Horseshoe bats are the primary host for the ancestor of the viruses that caused both the 2002 SARS outbreak and the COVID-19 pandemic, but a new study suggests that the wildlife trade transported the virus to the places where they first emerged in humans.

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Credit: Composite image: COVID-19, Greater horseshoe bats, Raffaele Maiorano, CC0 1.0 via iNaturalist; SARS-CoV-2 virus, NAIAD, CC-BY-2.0; palm civet, Rejoice Gassah, CC BY 4.0 via iNaturalist

The ancestor of the virus that causes COVID-19 left its point of origin in Western China or Northern Laos just several years before the disease first emerged in humans up to 2,700 kilometers away in Central China, according to a new study by University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers and their colleagues. That’s not enough time for the evolving virus to have been carried there via the natural dispersal of its primary host, the horseshoe bat. This has led the researchers to conclude that it instead hitched a ride there with other animals via the wildlife trade, consistent with what happened during the SARS outbreak in 2002. The study was published in Cell on May 7, 2025.

Horseshoe bats are the main hosts of sarbecoviruses. These viruses don’t harm the bats, but are thought to have made the leap to humans through “zoonotic spillover” events. Sarbecoviruses gave rise to severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-1, the strain that caused the SARS pandemic of 2002-2004, and SARS-CoV-2, the strain that resulted in the COVID-19 pandemic. How they got to the places where these events occurred and whether animals besides bats were involved has been a matter of ongoing debate, however.

To clarify these questions, the researchers analyzed the family tree of both viral strains using genome sequence data available online, mapping their evolutionary history across Asia before they emerged in humans. However, the picture was blurred by the fact that these RNA viruses undergo a large amount of recombination inside their bat hosts, exchanging genetic material.

“When two different viruses infect the same bat, sometimes what comes out of that bat is an amalgam of different pieces of both viruses,” said co-senior author Joel Wertheim, Ph.D., a professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health. “Recombination complicates our understanding of the evolution of these viruses because it results in different parts of the genome having different evolutionary histories.”

The researchers avoided that problem by identifying all of the non-recombining regions of the viral genomes and using those to recreate the evolutionary history of the viruses instead.

The study found that sarbecoviruses related to SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 have circulated around Western China and Southeast Asia for millennia. During this time, they moved around the landscape at similar rates as their horseshoe bat hosts. 

“Horseshoe bats have an estimated foraging area of around 2-3 km and a dispersal capacity similar to the diffusion velocity we estimated for the sarbecoviruses related to SARS-CoV-2,” said co-senior author Simon Dellicour, Ph.D., head of the Spatial Epidemiology Lab at Université Libre de Bruxelles and visiting professor at KU Leuven.

In contrast, the analysis also revealed that the most recent sarbecovirus ancestors of both SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 left their points of origin less than 10 years before they were first reported to infect humans — more than a thousand kilometers away.

“We show that the original SARS-CoV-1 was circulating in Western China — just one to two years before the emergence of SARS in Guangdong Province, South Central China, and SARS-CoV-2 in Western China or Northern Laos — just five to seven years before the emergence of COVID-19 in Wuhan,” said Jonathan E. Pekar, Ph.D., a 2023 graduate of the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology program at UC San Diego School of Medicine, now a  postdoctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh. 

The researchers calculated that given the distances that SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 would have had to cover so quickly, it is highly improbable that they could have been carried there via bat dispersal. Much more likely: they were transported there accidentally by wild animal traders via intermediate hosts.

In fact, previous studies have suggested that SARS-CoV-1 was likely carried from Yunnan Province in Western China to Guangdong Province by infected palm civets or raccoon dogs — animals commonly traded for their fur and meat. However, the current study provides the strongest evidence to date that SARS-CoV-2 made it to humans in a similar manner.

“The viruses most closely related to the original SARS coronavirus were found in palm civets and raccoon dogs in southern China, hundreds of miles from the bat populations that were their original source,” said co-senior author Michael Worobey, Ph.D., professor and head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at The University of Arizona. For more than two decades the scientific community has concluded that the live-wildlife trade was how those hundreds of miles were covered. We’re seeing exactly the same pattern with SARS-CoV-2.”

The findings dispute a widely circulated idea that SARS-CoV-1 emerged naturally, but SARS-CoV2 was the result of a lab leak.

“At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a concern that the distance between Wuhan and the bat virus reservoir was too extreme for a zoonotic origin,” Wertheim said. “This paper shows that it isn't unusual and is, in fact, extremely similar to the emergence of SARS-CoV-1 in 2002.”

Zoonotic spillover events are on the rise worldwide due to an increase in human-animal interactions via the wildlife trade, as well as urbanization and habitat destruction. The researchers believe that by continuing to sample wild bat populations for sarbecoviruses, it may be possible to discover where the next coronavirus pandemic will come from. What’s more, understanding the evolutionary history of these viruses and other pathogens can help us prepare for and control future disease outbreaks.

Additional co-authors on the study include: Jennifer L. Havens and Yu Wang at UC San Diego; Tetyana I. Vasylyeva at UC San Diego and University of California Irvine; Andrew Rambaut at University of Edinburgh; Spyros Lytras at University of Tokyo and University of Glasgow; Joseph Hughes and David L. Robertson at University of Glasgow; Mahan Ghafari and Aris Katzourakis at University of Oxford; Andrew F. Magee and Marc A. Suchard at University of California Los Angeles; Edyth Parker at The Scripps Research Institute and Redeemer’s University; Xiang Ji at Tulane University; Alice C. Hughes at University of Hong Kong and China Biodiversity Green Development Foundation; and Philippe Lemey at KU Leuven.

The study was funded, in part, by the National Institutes of Health (grants R01 AI135992, R01 AI153044, R01 AI162611, U19 AI135995, and T15LM011271), Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (grant F.4515.22), the Research Foundation - Flanders (grant G098321N, G0D5117N and G051322N), the European Union Horizon 2020 project MOOD (grant agreement 874850), and the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 725422).

Disclosures: Wertheim has received ongoing funding from the CDC through contracts or agreements to his institution unrelated to this research. Wertheim, Pekar, and Worobey have received consulting fees and/or provided compensated expert testimony on SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Journal

Cell

DOI

10.1016/j.cell.2025.03.035 

COI Statement

Wertheim has received ongoing funding from the CDC through contracts or agreements to his institution unrelated to this research. Wertheim, Pekar, and Worobey have received consulting fees and/or provided compensated expert testimony on SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19

Comb jellies reveal ancient origins of animal genome regulation

Long-distance control of genes appeared 650-700 million years ago, much earlier than previously thought

Center for Genomic Regulation

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Image of the 'sea walnut' Mnemiopsis leydi

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Credit: Joan-Josep Soto Angel

Life depends on genes being switched on and off at exactly the right time. Even the simplest living organisms do this, but usually over short distances across the DNA sequence, with the on/off switch typically right next to a gene. This basic form of genomic regulation is probably as old as life on Earth. 

A new study published today in Nature by researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and the Centre Nacional d’Anàlisi Genòmica (CNAG) finds that the ability to control genes from far away, over many tens of thousands of DNA letters, evolved between 650 and 700 million years ago. It probably appeared at the very dawn of animal evolution, around 150 million years earlier than previously thought. 

Long-distance gene control, called distal regulation, relies on physically folding DNA and proteins into sophisticated loops. This allows regions far from a gene’s starting point to activate its function. This extra layer of control likely helped the first multicellular animals build specialised cell types and tissues without inventing new genes.  

The critical innovation likely originated in a sea creature, the common ancestor or all extant animals. The ancient animal evolved the ability to fold DNA in a controlled manner, creating loops in three-dimensional space that brought far-flung bits of DNA in direct contact with each other.  

“This creature could repurpose its genetic toolkit in different ways like a Swiss knife, enabling it to refine and explore innovative survival strategies. We did not expect this layer of complexity to be so ancient,” says Dr. Iana Kim, first author of the study and postdoctoral researcher with dual affiliation between the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and the Centre Nacional d’Anàlisis Genòmica (CNAG). 

The authors of the study made the discovery by exploring the genomes of many of the oldest branches on the animal family tree, including comb jellies like the ‘sea walnut’ (Mnemiopsis leidyi), placozoans, cnidarians, and sponges. They also studied single-celled relatives that are not animals but share a recent common ancestor. 

“You can discover a lot of new biology by looking at weird sea creatures. So far, we had been comparing genome sequences, but thanks to new methods we can now analyse which gene regulation mechanisms control genome function across species,” explains ICREA Research Professor Arnau Sebe-Pedrós, corresponding author of the study and Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation.  

The team used a technique called Micro-C to map how DNA physically folds inside the cells of each of the 11 different species they studied. For scale, each human cell nucleus packs about two metres of DNA. The researchers sifted through 10 billion pieces of sequencing data to build each species’ 3D genome map in detail. 

While there was no evidence of distal regulation in the single-celled relatives of animals, early-branching animals like comb jellies, placozoans and cnidarians had many loops. The sea walnut alone had over four thousand loops genome-wide. The finding is surprising given its genome is around just 200 million DNA letters long. In comparison, the human genome is 3.1 billion letters long and our cells can have tens of thousands of loops. 

Until now, distal regulation was thought to have first appeared in the last common ancestor of bilaterians, a group of many different types of animals which first appeared on Earth around 500 million years ago. However, comb jellies are descended from life forms which diverged early from other animal lineages around 650 to 700 million years ago. 

Whether comb jellies are older than sponges in the tree of life is a longstanding debate in evolutionary biology circles, but the study demonstrates that distal regulation arose at least one hundred and fifty million years earlier than previously thought. 

The study made another surprising discovery. Many animals are vertebrates. In their cells, loops are controlled by CTCF, an architectural protein which defines boundaries and compartmentalises genes into different local neighbourhoods. It is a foundational unit of genomic architecture in mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. However, the genomes of the early-branching animals do not encode any equivalent protein to CTCF. Instead, the authors discovered that comb jellies use a different architectural protein belonging to the same structural family. The discovery shatters the assumption that advanced genomic, distal regulation require CTCF. 

“It is impressive that the same problem has been solved using different tools. Thanks to this work, we now know that you can use two different proteins to bring distal DNA pices together in space forming a loop. Isn’t evolution marvellous?” says ICREA Research Professor Marc A. Marti-Renom, Group Leader at the Centre Nacional d’Anàlisi Genomic and the Centre for Genomic Regulation. 

Like sponges and comb jellies, humans are also made of the same building blocks of DNA. Today, our bodies rely on the ancient innovation of distal regulation to help create different types of cells from the same DNA, producing everything from brain cells to immune cells. When these contacts go wrong, diseases can arise. 

By tracing distal regulation to animals that lived many hundreds of million years ago, researchers can begin to piece together how the earliest versions of genomic regulation took shape, providing new clues about the fundamental principles that govern our cells and bodies today. This can help us understand where the system is robust and where it’s prone to failure, potentially guiding new medical insights or therapies.  

This work was led by the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), in collaboration with Marc A. Marti Renom’s Group at the Centre Nacional d’Anàlisis Genòmica, the University of Bergen, Queen Mary University of London, the Prefectural University of Hiroshima, and the University of Alberta. It was funded by an ERC Starting Grant (European Research Council) from the European Union.

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-08960-w 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

'Chromatin loops are an ancestral hallmark of the animal regulatory genome'

Article Publication Date

7-May-2025

 

Will you live an unprecedented life?

A new study published in Nature finds that today’s vulnerable youth will be most affected by continued greenhouse gas emissions

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

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Figure 1: Living an unprecedented life – an illustration. The figure shows the cumulative number of heatwaves faced since birth by children born in Brussels, Belgium, in 2020 under three climate change scenarios, reaching 1.5°C (blue), 2.5°C (orange), and 3.5°C (red) global warming by 2100, respectively. The unprecedented exposure threshold (dashed grey line) is largely surpassed, implying that children in this location will face unprecedented lifetime heatwave exposure regardless of the scenario. Credit: Grant et al., 2025, Nature 

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Credit: Grant et al., 2025, Nature

Climate change's disproportionate burden on youth 

Climate extremes, including heatwaves, crop failures, river floods, tropical cyclones, wildfires and droughts, will intensify with continued atmospheric warming. Today’s children will endure more climate extremes then any previous generation.  

“In 2021, we demonstrated how children are to face disproportionate increases in extreme event exposure – especially in low-income countries. Now, we examined where the cumulative exposure to climate extremes across one’s lifetime will far exceed that which would have been experienced in a pre-industrial climate” says Wim Thiery, professor of climate science at VUB and senior author of the study. 

“In this new study, living an unprecedented life means that without climate change, one would have less than a 1-in-10,000 chance of experiencing that many climate extremes across one’s lifetime” says Dr. Luke Grant, lead author and climate scientist at the VUB and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). “This is a stringent threshold that identifies populations facing climate extremes far beyond what could be expected without man-made climate change.” The threshold varies by location and type of climate extreme. 

By combining demographic data and climate model projections of climate extremes for each location on earth, the researchers calculated the percentage of each generation born between 1960 and 2020 who will face unprecedented exposure to climate extremes in their lifetime (see Figure 1). 

 

Generational impact of climate change 

The younger a person is, the higher their likelihood of unprecedented exposure to climate extremes. Even if we successfully limit global warming to 1.5°C, 52% of children born in 2020 will face unprecedented heatwave exposure, compared to only 16% of those born in 1960. For heatwaves, the effect is particularly pronounced for those born after 1980, when climate change scenarios increasingly dictate exposure levels. 

“By stabilizing our climate around 1.5 °C above pre-industrial temperatures, about half of today’s young people will be exposed to an unprecedented number of heatwaves in their lifetime. Under a 3.5 °C scenario, over 90% will endure such exposure throughout their lives”, warns Grant. “The same picture emerges for other climate extremes examined, though with slightly lower affected fractions of the population. Yet the same unfair generational differences in unprecedented exposure is observed.” Children in tropical countries will bear the worst burden under a 1.5 °C scenario. However, under high-emission scenarios, nearly all children worldwide face the prospect of living an unprecedented life (see Figure 2). 

 

Climate vulnerability and social injustice 

The study also highlights the social injustice of climate change and its impacts. Under current climate policies, the most socioeconomically vulnerable children born in 2020 will almost all (95%) endure unprecedented exposure to heatwaves in their lifetime, compared to 78% for the least vulnerable group. “Precisely the most vulnerable children experience the worst escalation of climate extremes. With limited resources and adaptation options, they face disproportionate risks”, says Thiery. 

 

Urgent Need for Global Climate Action 

Ahead of COP30 in Brazil, nations must submit updated climate commitments. Under current policies, global warming would reach around 2.7 °C this century. This study and the related Save The Children report emphasize the urgency of keeping global warming below 1.5 °C for the children of today and tomorrow. 

Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children International, said: “Across the world, children are forced to bear the brunt of a crisis they are not responsible for. Dangerous heat that puts their health and learning at risk; cyclones that batter their homes and schools; creeping droughts that shrivel up crops and shrink what’s on their plates. Amid this daily drumbeat of disasters, children plead with us not to switch off. This new research shows there is still hope, but only if we act urgently and ambitiously to rapidly limit warming temperatures to 1.5 °C, and truly put children front and centre of our response to climate change.”  

“With global emissions still rising and the planet only 0.2 °C away from the 1.5 °C threshold, world leaders must step up to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lessen the climate burden on today’s youth”, concludes Thiery. 

 

Links: 
[Nature Paper] ( https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08907-1) 
[Save The Children Report] (https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/document/born-into-the-climate-crisis-2-an-unprecedented-life-protecting-childrens-rights/ ) 

The study was accomplished by researchers from Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Environment and Climate Change Canada, KU Leuven, the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium (RMI), and ETH Zurich. 

 

Supplementary information 

The numbers reported in our new study focus on one single birth cohort: children born in 2020, who are today’s five year olds. Climate extremes will affect all generations, with children the most. We are providing therefore here below numbers that take into account all children who are between 5 and 18 years old today, which represents a total population of 1.69 billion children. 

 

Heatwaves 

Under a 1.5 °C pathway, 855 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to heatwaves. 

Under a 2.7 °C pathway, 1353 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to heatwaves. 

Under a 3.5 °C pathway, 1509 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to heatwaves. 

 

Crop failures 

Under a 1.5 °C pathway, 316 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to crop failures. 

Under a 2.7 °C pathway, 400 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to crop failures. 

Under a 3.5 °C pathway, 431 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to crop failures. 

 

Wildfires 

Under a 1.5 °C pathway, 119 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to wildfires. 

Under a 2.7 °C pathway, 134 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to wildfires. 

Under a 3.5 °C pathway, 147 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to wildfires. 

 

Droughts 

Under a 1.5 °C pathway, 89 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to droughts. 

Under a 2.7 °C pathway, 111 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to droughts. 

Under a 3.5 °C pathway, 116 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to droughts. 

 

River floods 

Under a 1.5 °C pathway, 132 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to river floods. 

Under a 2.7 °C pathway, 188 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to river floods. 

Under a 3.5 °C pathway, 191 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to river floods. 

 

Tropical cyclones  

Under a 1.5 °C pathway, 101 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to tropical cyclones. 

Under a 2.7 °C pathway, 163 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to tropical cyclones. 

Under a 3.5 °C pathway, 163 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 face unprecedented lifetime exposure  to tropical cyclones. 

Figure 2: Children in tropical countries are relatively worse off under ambitious climate scenarios, while nearly every child around the world will face unprecedented lifetime heatwave exposure under high warming scenarios. Credit: Grant et al., 2025, Nature 

Credit

Grant et al. 2025 Nature

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-08907-1 

Vehicle age and driver assistance technologies in fatal crashes involving teen and middle-aged drivers

JAMA Network Open

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About The Study: 

The findings of this study suggest that older vehicles and those with fewer driver assistance technologies are associated with increased risk of driver death in fatal crashes; thus, teens should drive the safest vehicles available, not older family cars. The findings underscore the urgent need to ensure teens drive safer vehicles to protect their lives.

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jingzhen Yang, PhD, MPH, email ginger.yang@nationwidechildrens.org.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.8942)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.8942?guestAccessKey=c0957767-f5eb-4d6d-88a4-15c747418b57&utm_source=for_the_media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=050725

About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication. 

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Journal

JAMA Network Open

Study finds teens driving older vehicles have increased risk for fatal crashes

Nationwide Children's Hospital

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(COLUMBUS, Ohio) – Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens. Newer vehicles and driver assistance technologies show promise in reducing crashes and injury severities.  Researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital reviewed national fatal crash data (2016-2021) and examined the vehicle age and driver assistance technologies of vehicles driven by teen and middle-aged drivers, and their associations with driver deaths during fatal crashes. 

In a study published today in JAMA Network Open, researchers found that driving vehicles 6-15 years old had a 19% greater risk of driver death in fatal crashes, and driving vehicles older than 15 years had a 31% greater risk, both compared to driving vehicles 5 years old or newer, regardless of driver age. Additionally, each driver assistance technology already present in vehicles was associated with a  6% reduction in the risk of driver death in fatal crashes. 

“Because every family wants their teen to arrive anywhere safely, teen driver fatalities are a serious public health concern,” said Jingzhen Ginger Yang, PhD, MPH, lead author of the study and principal investigator in the Center for Injury Research and Policy of the Abigail Wexner Research  Institute at Nationwide Children’s. “Given teen drivers’ high crash rates compared to other age  groups and their increasing involvement in fatal crashes, it is crucial for teen drivers to operate the  safest vehicles available.” 

The study found that teen drivers (15-18 years) were more likely than middle-aged drivers (31-55  years) to drive vehicles older than 15 years and vehicles with fewer driver assistance technologies at the time of fatal crashes. Older vehicles and vehicles with fewer driver assistance technologies were associated with a higher risk of death for drivers involved in fatal crashes, regardless of driver age. 

“Our findings, along with those from other studies, underscore the importance of safe vehicle strategies, education for families and ensuring teens drive safer cars whenever possible,” said Fangda  Zhang, PhD, research scientist in the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide  Children's and co-lead author of the study. “Parents commonly pass their old vehicles to their teens who are still learning basic driving skills. While it is an exciting milestone for families with new  drivers, this practice increases teens’ vulnerability to vehicle malfunctions, making their driving less  safe.” 

Because parents and caregivers often control what vehicles their teens drive, their choices significantly impact the driving safety of their teens and other road users. Families should be advised to prioritize safety features when choosing the first car for teens, ensuring it is newer and safer,  given the increased involvement of teen drivers in motor vehicle crashes and motor vehicle crash-related fatalities.

Based on the study findings, study authors propose several recommendations:

• Vehicle Safety: Teens should drive the safest vehicles available. 
  • Pediatricians and other health care providers should advise parents to prioritize safety features when choosing the first car for their teens and avoid vehicles older than 15 years, especially during the initial months of unsupervised driving, which is the highest crash risk period for teen drivers.  
  • Parents can refer to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) for a list of affordable, safe vehicles for teens. If a newer vehicle is not an option, more frequent maintenance should be encouraged to improve the vehicle’s safety.  
• Newer Technologies: Pediatricians and other health care providers should educate families about the benefits of newer vehicle technologies, such as crash avoidance features, lane assistance technology, and teen-specific technologies, which can significantly reduce crashes and related injuries. Families should choose vehicles with more driver assistance technologies for teens whenever possible.  
• Safe Driving Habits: Pediatricians and other health care providers should address other aspects of teen driving safety beyond vehicle selection. They should educate parents and teens about the danger of risky driving behaviors and promote safe driving habits, such as seat belt use, safe nighttime driving, limiting teen passengers, avoiding distractions and following state Graduated Driver Licensing requirements. 

Data for this study were obtained from Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), a comprehensive crash database widely recognized in traffic safety research for its detailed information on drivers,  vehicles, and crash environments involved in US fatal crashes. 

The Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP) of the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital works globally to reduce injury-related pediatric death and disabilities. With innovative research at its core, CIRP works to continually improve the scientific understanding of the epidemiology, biomechanics, prevention, acute treatment, and rehabilitation of injuries. CIRP serves as a pioneer by translating cutting edge injury research into education, policy,  and advances in clinical care. For related injury prevention materials or to learn more about CIRP,  visit www.injurycenter.org. Follow CIRP on IG @CIRPatNCH. 

About The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital
Named to the Top 10 Honor Roll on U.S. News & World Report’s 2024-25 list of “Best Children’s  Hospitals,” Nationwide Children’s Hospital is one of America’s largest not-for-profit free-standing pediatric health care systems providing unique expertise in pediatric population health, behavioral health, genomics and health equity as the next frontiers in pediatric medicine, leading to best outcomes for the health of the whole child. Integrated clinical and research programs are part of what allows Nationwide Children’s to advance its unique model of care. As home to the Department of Pediatrics of The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Nationwide Children’s faculty train the next generation of pediatricians, scientists and pediatric specialists. The Abigail Wexner Research  Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital is one of the Top 10 National Institutes of Health funded free-standing pediatric research facilities in the U.S., supporting basic, clinical, translational,  behavioral and population health research. The AWRI is comprised of multidisciplinary Centers of  Emphasis paired with advanced infrastructure supporting capabilities such as technology commercialization for discoveries; gene- and cell-based therapies; and genome sequencing and analysis. More information is available at NationwideChildrens.org/Research. 

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Journal

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.8942 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Vehicle Age and Driver Assistance Technologies in Fatal Crashes Involving Teen and Middle-Aged Drivers

Article Publication Date

7-May-2025