When residential fires happen at night while families are sleeping, deaths are more likely to occur. Smoke alarms are important for preventing these deaths, yet research has shown that many pre-teenage children don't wake up to traditional high-frequency tone alarms. Researchers from the Center for Injury Research and Policy and the Sleep Disorders Center at Nationwide Children's Hospital conducted a series of studies to identify smoke alarm signals that would more effectively awaken children and other members of the household in the event of a fire.
In a recent study published online in Pediatric Research, researchers examined four different smoke alarms to determine which ones worked best to wake children from deep sleep and prompt them to perform an escape procedure: a male voice, female voice, combination of a low-frequency tone plus a female voice (hybrid alarm), or high-frequency tone.