New study lists top causes of deaths for children

Car accidents were the number one cause of death of children and teenagers in 2016, according to a new University of Michigan study published in the News England Journal of Medicine.

Sixty percent of the deaths of the 20,360 children and teens ages 1-19 were preventable, the study determined.

Firearms were the number two cause of death, killing more than 3,140 children and teens, or about eight a day. “Homicides account for 60 percent of those deaths, suicide about 35 percent, unintentional or accidental injuries about one percent and mass shootings slightly less than one percent," said Dr. Rebecca Cunningham, a professor in the U-M Department of Emergency Medicine and the lead author of the study.

Shooting deaths occur at the same rate in urban, rural and suburban settings, the study said. Youths living in urban areas are twice as likely to die in homicides as those who live in rural settings. Rural teens have a rate that's twice as high as teens living in urban areas. Teens who live in the suburbs die at equal rates from firearm suicides and homicides.

Cancer was the third biggest killer.

Suffocation – largely the result of suicide by hanging — was fourth.  After that: drowning, drug overdoses and drug poisonings  (half of which are caused by opioids), and birth defects.

Of the 20,360 children and teens ages 1-19 who died in 2016, 60% of the deaths were preventable, the study determined.

Source: freep.com

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