PREVENTABLE CHILD AND YOUTH DEATHS

DESPITE A RECENT INCREASE, OVERALL DEATHS DUE TO INJURY DECLINES 16.0% SINCE 2005.

Description Of Indicator

This indicator reports the number of deaths from unintentional and intentional injuries, including suicide and homicide. Leading causes of death by age group are identified.

Why is this Important?

The death of every child is a tragedy for family and friends and a loss to the community. Along with the direct impact of a child’s death, the child death rate in a community is an important indicator for public health advocates and policymakers. A high rate can point to underlying problems, such as violent neighborhoods or inadequate child supervision.1 Unintentional childhood death due to injury is strongly inversely related to median income and thus, a solid indicator of poverty.2 It can also point to inequities, for example, in access to health care or safe places to play.2 Because children are much more likely to die during the first year of life (infancy) than they are at older ages, trends in infant mortality are discussed separately (pages 16-17).

Findings

• Orange County’s overall injury death rate for children decreased 31% from a peak rate of 12.9 (per 100,000 children one to 19 years) in 2006 to 8.9 in 2014 (121 deaths), lower than California with a rate of 10.6 in 2014.

• The unintentional injury death rate (e.g., accidental poisoning, motor vehicle accident or drowning) decreased 27% from a peak rate of 7.5 (per 100,000 children one to 19 years) in 2006 to 5.5 in 2014.

• Unintentional injuries accounted for the highest average number (41 per year) and rate (5.3 per 100,000) of all injury deaths to children one to 19 years between 2012 and 2014, followed by cancer (16.7 deaths per year), suicide (11.0 per year), homicide (9.0 per year) and congenital anomalies (8.7 per year).

• Younger children and teens (ages one to 14) tended to have higher average number of deaths compared to older teens (ages 15 to 19) from unintentional injuries such as accidental poisoning, drowning and motor vehicle occupant deaths at 7.3 per year.

• Older teens (ages 15 to 19) tended to have higher average number of deaths per year compared to younger children and teens due to suicide (9.6 per year) and homicide (7.7 per year) in addition to unintentional injury deaths (23.3 per year) primarily due to accidental poisoning and motor vehicle incidents.

Injury, Unintentional Injury, Suicide and Homicide, Rate Per 100,000 Children, One

19 Years Old

Injury Death Rate per 100,000, Youth One to 19 Years Old, Orange County and

Leading Causes of Death for Children One to 19 Years Old, by Age Group and Number of Deaths,