Consumer products are part of the everyday fabric of ageing well — beds, chairs, mobility aids, ladders, heaters, appliances, assistive technologies and home modifications all shape how people live, move and remain independent. But when products fail, are poorly designed, difficult to use, or mismatched to people’s needs, they can also contribute to serious injury.

The SafeAge Project, an Australian Research Council Discovery Project, is working to make these risks visible. Led by an interdisciplinary team spanning public health, healthy ageing, occupational therapy, psychology, law and data science, SafeAge aims to generate contemporary evidence about consumer product safety risks for older people and identify priorities for injury prevention.

The need for this work is clear. The last comprehensive Australian research into consumer product-related injuries among older people was conducted more than 25 years ago, yet our population continues to age. In the decades since, the consumer product landscape has transformed, shaped by online marketplaces, a vastly expanded range of products and increasingly complex home environments.

SafeAge brings together regulatory, health and consumer evidence to build a more complete understanding of product safety risks. This integrated approach matters because each data source tells a different part of the story. International regulatory data can show which products have triggered recalls, bans, warnings or standards. Health data can show patterns of injury and severity. Consumer narratives in complaints and reviews can reveal how incidents unfold in real life — in homes and everyday routines — and can highlight issues that may not be obvious in coded injury data alone.

Now in the final year of the three-year study, SafeAge is moving into knowledge translation. In February 2026, Associate Professor Alan Abrahams and Dr Catherine Niven presented SafeAge findings at the plenary session Hidden Hazards, Overlooked Consumers: Closing the Safety Gap for Older Adults at the International Consumer Product Health and Safety Organization Symposium in Orlando, Florida, USA. More recently, Catherine joined the opening panel discussion at the ACCC National Consumer Congress, Being Impactful in a Volatile, Uncertain and Ambiguous World. Drawing on SafeAge findings, she highlighted the importance of listening to consumer voices to better understand diverse real-world experiences of product safety concerns. Catherine has also joined the Standards Australia Consumer Policy (COPOLCO) Committee, creating opportunities to ensure older consumers’ interests are considered in future standards development.

For more information about SafeAge, please contact Catherine Niven at nivenc@qut.edu.au