Why are more U.S. kids dying? Alarming rise in mortality rates of children and adolescents

Vidya Sethuraman
India Post News Service

Two recent reports point to a worrying trend: children and adolescents have been dying at increasing rates in the U.S. over the last few years, and COVID has little to do with it. Between 2019 and 2021, all-cause child mortality rose by 10.7% one year and 8.3% the following, the largest increase in decades. Among the main causes: suicide, homicide, drug overdoses and car accidents.

Guns are an important protagonist in a young person’s risk of dying. Gun deaths among U.S. children rose 50% in two years, and so far, this year, there have been 42 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, resulting in 17 deaths and 32 injuries nationwide. Accordingly, life expectancy in this country has taken a downturn.

Speakers at the EMS briefing on April 21 presented the latest research and discussed the main reasons for this increase as well as the potential policies that could help address it.

Steven H. Woolf, MD, MPH, a Professor of Family Medicine and Population Health at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine said death rates in infants, children, and teenagers in most industrialized countries have been falling for many years thanks to progress in pediatric medicine and in preventing the leading causes of injury deaths in children. The four causes of death that have largely been responsible for this increase in all cause mortality are homicide, suicide, drug overdoses, and car accidents. Between 2019 and 2021, homicide deaths among 1- to 19-year-olds will increase by 39 percent, drug overdose deaths will increase by 114 percent, car accident deaths will increase by 16 percent, and firearm deaths will increase by 41 percent.

Kim Parker, Director of Social and Demographic Trends at PEW Research Center said between 2019 and 2021, the overall number of gun deaths in the United States increased by 23%. Homicide is the most common type of gun homicide among children and adolescents. In 2021, 60 percent of gun deaths among children and teens were homicides, while 32 percent were suicides. African-American children and teens are significantly more likely to die from gun-related injuries than White, Hispanic and Asian-Americans. In addition, there were racial disparities in the types of deaths.

Mayra Alvarez, President at The Children’s Partnership said these are man-made reasons why our children are dying, not biological. We must make it easier for families to enroll in public benefits programs and access the health, the food, the housing and other supports that they need. Because all of those issues that impact the mental health of our families the stress, the depression, the greater anxiety that comes when parents can’t afford a child’s meal, when parents can’t afford to pay their rent, when parents can’t take their child to the doctor.

Kelly Sampson, Senior Counsel and Director of Racial Justice for Brady United believes that the root of the problem is where the guns come from.  She pointed out that every time gun control is mentioned, the focus is on buyers, but no one pays attention to upstream manufacturers and distributors. A lot of it is related to our history of white supremacy and racism.