A new study has found a significant increase in the number of deaths through injury, both intentional and unintentional, among young people in the United States.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics examined the death rate of Americans aged 10 to 19 from 1999 and 2016, and found that although the total death rate declined 33 percent from 1999 to 2013, it rose 12 percent from 2013 to 2016.
"During the 20th century, death rates for children and adolescents in the United States declined substantially and became increasingly injury related, due to the marked reduction in deaths for infectious diseases," the report reads. "This pattern continued into the 21st century, where the top three leading causes of death for persons aged 10–19 years were due to fatal injuries: unintentional injury (accidents), suicide, and homicide."
The report notes that injury deaths, including "unintentional injury," such as traffic accidents and drug overdoses, "suicide, homicide, legal intervention/war, and undetermined intent," made up 70 percent of deaths for persons aged 10-19 in 2016.
"When I first conceded to do this report 2½ years ago, I thought that we would be documenting a decline," Sally Curtin, CDC statistician and the report’s lead author, told CNN.
"We were surprised that there was such a broad increase across so many causes of death," she added. "There wasn't just one that was contributing."
From 1999 to 2013, the rate of accidental deaths in this age range dropped 49 percent, from 20.6 deaths for every 100,000 people to 10.6 deaths per 100,000. This rate then rose 13 percent from 2013 to 2016, up to 12 per 100,000. Homicide deaths fell from 1999 to 2014, but rose between 2014 and 2016, reaching 4.7 per 100,000 that year. Firearms were used in 87 percent of homicides and 43 percent of suicides.
Most injury-related deaths in this age range were unintentional, with suicide and homicide the next most common causes. Most unintentional injury deaths were caused by traffic accidents, 62 percent, while poisoning accounted for 16 percent and drowning for 7 percent.
"The poisoning deaths do include drug overdoses: Ninety percent of poisoning deaths are drug overdoses, and most of them are in older adolescents," Curtin said.
"Accurate recording of the circumstances surrounding the death as well as classifying the death obviously would be a limitation, and especially within the context of a drug overdose," Curtin said. "Oftentimes, it's hard to tell, unless there's a suicide note, whether it was a suicide or unintentional."
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