In 2018–2019, child unintentional injury death rates were highest among:
- Male children
- Babies under 1 year old and teens age 15–19 years
- American Indian and Alaska Native children and Black children
Motor vehicle crashes caused more deaths than other causes of unintentional injury.
Overall unintentional injury death rates in rural areas were higher than metro and urban areas.
Despite overall decreases in child unintentional injury death rates from 2010 to 2019, rates increased among some groups:
- Suffocation death rates increased 20% among infants overall and 21% among Black children
- Motor vehicle death rates among Black children increased 9% while rates among White children decreased 24%
- Poisoning death rates increased 50% among Hispanic children and 37% among Black children, while rates among White children decreased by 24%
Drowning was the leading cause of injury death for children age 1-4 years. Drowning death rates were 2.6 times higher among Black children age 5–9 years and 3.6 times higher among Black children age 10–14 years, when compared with White children of the same age.
CDC conducts research to better understand these disparities and puts science into action to improve health equity. As an example of this work, CDC is working with partnersto identify barriers to participation in basic swimming and water-safety skills training among youth who are at higher risk of drowning due to racial and ethnic disparities.
You can read more about these important findings in two recent CDC articles:
