What’s the solution to firearm injury?
Mortality in this age group, which had dropped nearly 33% from 1999 to 2013, climbed from 29.6 per 100,000 population aged 10-19 years in 2013 to 33.1 per 100,000 in 2016, the last year for which data are available. Meanwhile, deaths from injuries – unintentional injuries, suicides, homicides, and legal intervention – went from 19.8 per 100,000 to 23.3, an increase of almost 18%, from 2013 to 2016, and the noninjury death rate “was relatively stable,” Sally C. Curtin and her associates at the NCHS Division of Vital Statistics said in a National Vital Statistics Report.
The recent surge in injury deaths was more substantial in the older half of the age group. The mortality rate for children aged 10-14 years went from a low of 6.4 per 100,000 in 2012 to 7.1 in 2016, an increase of 11%, while the rate for those aged 15-19 rose 19% as it jumped from 32.8 per 100,000 in 2013 to 39.0 in 2016, the investigators wrote in the report.
The rate of unintentional injury deaths in 10- to 19-year-olds shows the same pattern as all deaths and injury deaths: Decline from 1999 to 2013 and then a rise for the last 3 years. That recent rise also can be seen in the most common form of unintentional injury deaths, motor vehicle traffic accidents, and in poisoning deaths, although that uptick began a year later. Homicide deaths declined by one-third from 2007 to 2014 and then increased, while suicide rates have been rising since 2007, the investigators said. Legal intervention deaths, defined as those caused by law enforcement actions, were not included because of relatively small annual numbers.
“Although progress was made in reducing injury deaths among children and adolescents aged 10-19 years during 1999-2013, the recent upturn shows that persistent as well as emerging challenges remain. … Further reductions will require renewed focus and effort,” Ms. Curtin and her associates wrote.
SOURCE: Curtin SC et al. Natl Vital Stat Rep. 2018 Jun;67(4):1-16.