Clara Watkins, Trauma Pack

Road traffic injuries (RTIs) are a leading cause of death and a poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, costing 1% - 5% of GDP. Commercial trauma packs costing ~£600 are often unusable because most first responders are other road users or locals who lack training and can’t read.

Watkins, Gill, Loudon (Cardiff School of Art & Design) and Hall (Cardiff Medical School) used participatory ethnographic approaches and medical expertise to develop an ultra-low-cost Trauma Pack for rural Zambia. Costing ~£480 less than existing packs, it uses hand-waxed and sealed cardboard neck-braces, drainpipe-based splints, and bicycle inner tubes for pressure bandages. It is manufacturable locally, and usable by untrained, illiterate members of the Zambian public by employing culturally-tuned graphic instructions that walk users through the global standard ABCDE care sequence.

The research narrative and impact are expressed through four items:

CW101: the summary of the research narrative, highlighting the originality, rigour and significance of the research, including its 300-word statement.

CW102: Double-blind peer reviewed 2015 international conference paper ‘The Challenges of taking a User-Centric Approach within developing countries: A case study of designing medical solutions for Zambia’.

CW103: Video highlighting the research process and the design features of the Trauma Pack.

CW104: UK Patent (GB 2556418B).

The trauma pack was developed in collaboration with 130 people, including Zambian villagers, rural health post medics and district and city hospital staff (see conference paper CW102). A revised version of the Trauma Pack was trialled with 200+ emergency services staff in Namibia (see video CW103).

Prototypes have already been deployed for road traffic incidents, shootings, stabbings, domestic violence and an attempted suicide. One Trauma Pack component, the Neck Brace, was awarded a UK Patent in 2018 (CW104). A US patent was granted in January 2021 - outside the REF period – so is not included.