Leading Causes of Death Among Children
Leading Causes of Death Among Children
I know that this isn’t the most uplifting topic, but it’s worth talking about. Children ages 1 to 19 years of age are most likely to die from Firearms, motor vehicle accidents, and drug overdoses and poisonings. What’s disconcerting is that the three leading causes of death among children are preventable.
We can prevent gun-related deaths, motor vehicle accidents, and drug overdoses/poisonings by change our local, State, and National policies to protect our most vulnerable members of society - children.
Here’s a graph from the New England Journal of Medicine that visualizes this information:
What you may notice is that firearm-related injury and death overtook motor vehicle crashes over the last few years. The authors of the NEJM article discuss this:
new data show a sharp 13.5% increase in the crude rate of firearm-related death from 2019 to 2020. This change was driven largely by firearm homicides, which saw a 33.4% increase in the crude rate from 2019 to 2020, whereas the crude rate of firearm suicides increased by 1.1%
This week, I took action on an issue that I care about, as I can see it every day. People in our neighborhood often drive 45 or 50 miles per hour in 35 mile per hour speed zone, and 35 miles per hour in a 25 mile per hour speed zone.
There’s compelling evidence/information from the AAA that examines your likelihood of being injured and dying when you’re a pedestrian who is hit by a motor vehicle. Here’s what they found:
Results show that the average risk of severe injury for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle reaches 10% at an impact speed of 16 mph, 25% at 23 mph, 50% at 31 mph, 75% at 39 mph, and 90% at 46 mph.
The average risk of death for a pedestrian reaches 10% at an impact speed of 23 mph, 25% at 32 mph, 50% at 42 mph, 75% at 50 mph, and 90% at 58 mph.
25 miles per hour to 35 miles per hour doesn’t sound like much, but your likelihood of injury moves from 25% around 25 mph to over 50% at 35 mph, and your likelihood of dying moves from 10% at 25 mph to over 25% at about 35 mph.
Because of this, I put up some signs in my neighborhood with the help of my United States Representative, Rashida Tlaib. It was affirming and empowering to talk about this and put up these signs, as people speeding through our neighborhood is an issue that is really bothersome.
Additionally, few cities in Metro Detroit design their communities for pedestrians first. The car/vehicle/automobile is prioritized. Often times, crosswalks are too wide to be safe for kids or elderly people to cross within the allotted time. Cross walks are often not present where pedestrians may want to cross. Sidewalks sometimes are not present where they should be.
All of this leads to people/pedestrians crossing where they can or walking in the street where there isn't a sidewalk, which can lead to accidents, injuries, and deaths.
Other communities in Metro Detroit do well with this, implementing road diets to reduce the number of traffic lanes, adding in bike lanes, slowing down speeds, adding curb bump outs to shorten the distance for pedestrians to cross the street.
If we want to become a region that attracts more people, we need to make our cities more live-able, more walkable, and safer for kids, bicyclists, older adults, and everyone.
All of that is to say, please drive safely, please drive at or under the speed LIMIT, and please look both ways for pedestrians, bikers, kids playing ball near the street, and kids in strollers. Thank you,
-Paul Thomas, MD