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Injury Prevention Experts at Arkansas Children’s Hospital Respond to CDC Report Detailing Causes and Rates of Childhood Injuries and Deaths Across U.S.

Publication Date: Tuesday, December 23, 2008

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Dec. 11, 2008) --The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization and UNICEF released this week the World Report on Child Injury Prevention (2008). The report was compiled over a six-year period (2000-2005 for fatal injuries and 2001–2006 for non-fatal injuries), with global data documenting the number of childhood injuries and subsequent deaths. Each year, childhood injuries in the United States cause more than 9.2 million children to be treated in an emergency department. The health risks and death rates from unintentional injury pose a greater threat to children than any illness or disease.

"This report is, again, confirmation of the most frequent and most serious threats to our children’s safety," says Mary Aitken, MD, MPH, medical director of the Injury Prevention Center at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. "Childhood injury is an increasing public health concern – here in Arkansas, in the United States and around the world." Aitken is also a professor of Pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine. She says Arkansas’ rate for teenage driving deaths is more than half the national average. Emergency room doctors at Arkansas Children's Hospital also have seen an alarming increase in the number of injuries from ATVs over the past several years.

"We, as a society must embrace and enforce proven safety measures to help protect our children," Aitken said. During the documentation period, approximately 55 million children, from infants to 19-year-olds were treated in emergency departments for unintentional injuries. Another 73,052 died because of their injuries.

Falls were the most frequent non-fatal injury across all age groups, with 2.8 million children being injured from a fall. The majority of childhood deaths were the result of transportation-related injuries; these included occupants of motor vehicles, pedestrians or pedalcyclists, and averaged about 8,000 deaths each year. Among the children and adolescents younger than 20 years of age who died, 66 percent died from transportation-related injuries.

The report also included an overview of injuries related to drowning, fires, burns, poisoning and suffocation, among others.

Other key findings include:

The death rate for males was almost two times the rate for females, and males have a higher injury death rate than females in all childhood age groups.

Drowning was the leading cause injury death for children ages 1 to 4. For those ages 5 to 19, most injury deaths were due to being an occupant in a motor vehicle traffic crash.

Children ages 1 to 4 had the highest rates of nonfatal poisoning.

Rates for injuries from fires or burns were highest for children ages 4 and younger.

The top five causes for injury deaths are:

Road crashes: Kill 260,000 children a year and injure about 10 million. They are the leading cause of death among 10 to 19-year-olds and a leading cause of child disability.

Drowning: Kills more than 175,000 children a year. Every year, up to 3 million children survive a drowning incident. Due to brain damage in some survivors, non-fatal drowning has the highest average lifetime health and economic impact of any injury type.

Burns: Fire-related burns kill nearly 96,000 children a year, and the death rate is 11 times higher in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries.

Falls: Nearly 47,000 children fall to their deaths every year, but hundreds of thousands more sustain less serious injuries from a fall.

Poisoning: More than 45,000 children die each year from unintended poisoning.

Injury prevention experts say there has been no significant decrease in the number of child injuries in the United States, and they attribute that to the need for better education for parents.

"These injuries are preventable," said Aitken. "Injury prevention must begin by educating families on these dangers, and in turn, parents must make the best practices for protecting their children."

In response to the childhood injury report, the CDC is launching Protect the Ones You Love: Child Injuries Are Preventable, a new initiative to raise parents’ awareness about the leading causes of child injury and how they can be prevented. For free information and resources, go to www.cdc.gov/safechild.

For more information on the Injury Prevention Center at Arkansas Children's Hospital, visit www.archildrens.organd click on Community Outreach. Or, call (501) 364-3400 or toll-free at (866) 611-3445.

Arkansas Children’s Hospital is the only pediatric medical center in Arkansas and one of the largest in the United States serving children from birth to age 21. The campus spans 29 city blocks and houses 316 beds, a staff of approximately 500 physicians, 80 residents in pediatrics and pediatric specialties and more than 4,200 employees. The private, nonprofit healthcare facility boasts an internationally renowned reputation for medical breakthroughs and intensive treatments, unique surgical procedures and forward-thinking medical research - all dedicated to fulfilling our mission of enhancing, sustaining and restoring children’s health and development. ACH, recently named one of U.S. News & World Report’s best pediatric hospitals for the third time, also ranked No. 76 on the 2007 FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For®. For more information, visit www.archildrens.org.

UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with five colleges, a graduate school, a medical center, six centers of excellence and a statewide network of regional centers. UAMS has about 2,538
students and 733 medical residents. Its centers of excellence include the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, the Psychiatric Research Institute and the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging. It is one of the state’s largest public employers with about 9,600employees, including nearly 1,150physicians who provide medical care to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the VA Medical Center and UAMS’ Area Health Education Centers throughout the state. UAMS and its affiliates have an economic impact in Arkansas of $5billion a year. For more information, visit www.uams.edu