What’s the Leading Cause of Death Among Children/Youth in California?

What’s the most common cause of death for children and youth in California? Suicide? Cancer? Homicide? It’s actually unintentional injuries – accidents. Among all the leading causes of death, accidents consistently are the top cause of death for California children and youth ages 1-24 – and unintentional injury death rates are highest for 15-to 24-year-olds.

Over the past decade, from 2000 to 2009, 17,430 of California’s children and youth ages 1–24 have died as a result of accidents.

It’s not just a California issue, of course. In the U.S., the leading cause of death for children/youth also is unintentional injury. More specifically, drowning is the national leading cause of accidental death among children ages 1-4, but among older children and youth (those ages 5-24), it is being an occupant in a motor vehicle crash. Homicide, suicide, cancer, heart disease, and congenital abnormalities also make up the leading causes of death for 1- to 24-year-olds.

The newly updated child death data on kidsdata.org point to some encouraging signs. The unintentional injury death rate declined from ’96-’98 to ’07-’09 for child/youth age groups in the state, except for 20-to 24-year-olds. But according to the most recent data, accidents remain the leading cause of death for children/youth. In 2009 alone, nearly 1,400 California children and youth ages 1-24 died as a result of accidents, a number that highlights the need for continued public education and policies to reduce preventable deaths. For more information on what can be done, see the California Injury Prevention Network and SafeKids USA. Kidsdata.org also offers Policy Implications related to child deaths overall, as well as listings of websites and key reports.

Posted by kidsdata.org

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