Adding Intent to Injury –
June 1, 2018 – There has been a significant rise in accidental deaths, homicides and suicides among young people across the United States, and experts are calling it a wake-up call. “We were surprised that there was such a broad increase across so many causes of death,” she said. “There wasn’t just one that was contributing.”In general, the leading causes of death among adolescents ages 15 to 19 in the United States are unintentional injuries such as car crash-related injuries, followed by suicide and homicide, according to the CDC. The new report was based on data from death certificates filed in all 50 states and the District of Columbia between 1999 and 2016. Death certificates are generally completed by funeral directors, attending physicians, medical examiners and coroners.
Those data, from the National Vital Statistics System, were collected and processed through the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program. Researchers analyzed the data, taking a close look at the age of the person who died and the reported cause of death. Motor vehicle traffic fatalities accounted for 62% of these unintentional injury deaths, followed by poisoning at 16% and drowning at 7%. Those three methods of accidental deaths accounted for 85% of all unintentional injury-related deaths in 2016. “This should not be happening and bucks the trend that we as a country have experienced in the past several decades. We should be worried about this,” said Weiser, who’s also an associate professor of surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine. “Our children are our country’s future, and we as a society need to recognize when they are in trouble. This disturbing trend should be a wake-up call that mental health services, injury prevention, gun safety and ongoing efforts to improve car and driver safety need support, attention, and financial resources,” he said. “Our investments now as a society will be paid back handsomely when our children grow up to be healthy, productive adults.”
