Rising Injury-Related Mortality Rates Among U.S. Children and Adolescents

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by News Medical.

Injury-related mortality rates, including firearm-related deaths, among children and adolescents increased in almost every state between 2018-2022, according to findings from the University of Michigan.

Researchers from the U-M Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention analyzed mortality data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wide-ranging Outline Data for Epidemiologic Research and found that nearly 90% of states saw an increase in mortality rates among children and adolescents overall during the study period.

North Dakota’s numbers show the largest increase among states at 65% and Rhode Island saw the largest decrease at 20%. The researchers noted that while mortality rates for children aged 1 to 9 increased, the majority of the overall rate increase was among those ages 10 to 19 years old.

The data also showed that six states saw decreases in injury-related mortality rates and three states reported decreases of more than 10%.

The research defines children and adolescents as ages 1-19. In 2022, institute researchers found that firearms surpassed motor vehicles as the leading cause of death among children and teens in the United States.

The newest analysis is published as a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics.

The study also found that states with the highest per-capita mortality rates among children and adolescents tended to have firearm injuries as the leading cause. States with the lowest per-capita mortality did not include firearms as a top-two cause. Motor vehicle-related deaths, malignant neoplasms and suffocation were found to be in the top two causes of child and adolescent death in multiple states.

Source: News-Medical
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240904/Rising-injury-related-mortality-rates-among-US-children-and-adolescents.aspx