The Grim News on Child Safety

Gunshot wounds and car accidents pose the leading threats to children’s survival in California and throughout the country, overshadowing even disease.

Nationwide, car accidents account for 37% and firearms 27% of the 20,000 fatal injuries each year to children ages 1 through 19, according to a report released Thursday from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Injury Prevention Center in Baltimore. A greater number of children are maimed and disabled in shootings and accidents, though the report gave no specific number.

Bleak as it appears, the general picture is actually improving. Overall, injury deaths of California children dropped 11.7%, more than the national decrease of 7.6%, during the study period from 1986 to 1992.

Certain types of injuries, such as from motorcycle or farm machinery accidents, decreased significantly.

But the nationwide figures show a steep and alarming rise in other dangers, particularly firearm homicides. The leading cause of death for boys 15-19 was gunshot wounds, either from homicide, suicide or accident.

Moreover, officials estimate that the teenage homicide rate in the United States is at least six times higher than the rates in other industrialized countries.

In California, children are less likely to kill themselves, but more likely to be killed by others. The state’s youth suicide rate, 2.47 per 100,000, was lower than the national rate of 3.07; but its homicide rate, 7.43, was above the national level of 5.24.

Nationally, firearms were used in three-fourths of all youth homicides and two-thirds of all suicides.

According to lead author Susan Baker, the report, which analyzed the most recent data available from the National Center for Health Statistics, is intended to help each state determine which children have the greatest need for preventive measures and which hazards threaten different age groups.

Baker said her colleagues advise pediatricians point out to parents “the fact that having a gun in the home will increase by tenfold the risk that a teenager may commit suicide.”

The causes of death, as well as the gender and age of victims, varied significantly from state to state. Suicide rates, for instance, were particularly high in the Rocky Mountain states. Drowning was a large problem in western and southern states. Firearm deaths were higher in southern states and in states with large urban populations, such as California and Michigan.

According to the report, 17,462 California youths younger than 20 died from injuries in the 1986-’92 period. Following the national pattern, the largest single cause was vehicle accidents, followed by shootings and drownings.

Amy Abraham, policy director for Children Now, a California-based advocacy organization, said the state saw dramatic increases in shooting deaths a few years back, but since then, fatalities and injuries have been leveling off. In 1988, 356 youths died from shootings; in 1991, the number jumped to 895. It climbed to 901 in 1993, with 2,852 total gunshot injuries.

“In the early ‘90s, that trend hasn’t continued to rocket skyward,” Abraham said. “But it’s still something that should worry parents and policymakers and communities. When 27% [of the injury deaths] are due to firearms, it’s pretty astounding.”

Many of the injuries and deaths could be avoided “if we applied smarter policies and engaged in greater education,” said Abraham, whose group supports gun control.

So far, proposed state legislation to restrict firearms has been stalled in committee. If the public were more aware of the hazards to children, and if efforts were made to provide safer places for youth to congregate, Abraham said, “then we would be able to avoid these unnecessary deaths and injuries to children.”