Tuesday, March 19

Guns are now the leading cause of death in children in the US, ahead of traffic accidents


Updated:

Save

Firearms have overtaken automobile accidents as the leading cause of death among American children with official data showing a sharp rise in gun murders such as the massacre at a Texas school that claimed the lives of 19 children.

In general terms 4,368 children and adolescents up to 19 years of age died due to shooting in 2020; a rate of 5.4 per 100,000, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Nearly two-thirds of the deaths were homicides.

By comparison, there was 4,036 vehicle-related deaths; previously the leading cause of death in that age group.

The gap has been closing since traffic safety measures have been improved in recent decades while deaths from weapons have been growing.

The trend lines crossed in 2020, the latest year for which data is available; a finding found in a letter published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

The letter’s authors cautioned that the new data was consistent with other evidence that gun violence increased during the pandemic of covid for reasons that are not yet fully clear, but “it cannot be assumed that it will revert to pre-pandemic levels”.

Updated data from the CDC shows that nearly 30% of deaths were suicides, only 3% were unintentional deaths and 2% correspond to unexplained attempts. A small number were categorized as “legal intervention” or self-defense.

Deaths of black children quadruple those of whites

The deaths hit disproportionately black children and adolescents which were four times higher than those of white children for whom vehicles continue to be their greatest threat. The second most affected group was that of the American Indians.

Also Read  This is how Putin's daughters are: Maria and Ekaterina

Men are six times more likely than women to die. When it comes to regions, the capital of the United States, Washington, has the highest rate followed by Louisiana and Alaska.

The data serve to highlight that mass shootings, like the one Tuesday at a Texas school, are just a small fraction of the total number of children killed by firearms.

“Since the 1960s, continued efforts have been directed at preventing motor vehicle fatalities,” wrote the authors of another recent letter published in NEJM, contrasting the situation with that of firearms whose regulations, instead, , you have been dimmed.

Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of the influential “Science” magazine, published an editorial on Thursday calling for more research on the impact of guns on public health in order to advance policy changes.

“Scientists should not stand by and watch others fight this,” he wrote. “Further research into the impact of gun ownership on public health will provide more evidence of its deadly consequences,” he added, arguing that severe mental illness, often thought to be the cause of mass shootings, was prevalent at similar levels in other countries outside the United States. suffer from frequent mass shootings.

See them
comments


www.abc.es

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *