Death rates in American youths at alarming 15-year high, study indicates these causes

A latest study into an alarming rise in deaths of American youth aged from 1 to 19 suggests the mortality rate has soared to 10.7 per cent which is a 15-year high and is driven mainly by pandemic suicides, homicides and drug overdoses, reported Daily Mail.

This rise was seen between 2019 and 2020 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data indicates that this number was further increased by 8.3 percent for the following year.According to the paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March, the rise in death rates is not due to to COVID-19 diseases per se but is rather attributed to a significant increase in violence, self-harm, and drug abuse andpandemic-induced suicides.

Guns are also a major cause of this astonishing rise in deaths. This comes as data says the US has reported a huge increase in the number of gun violence cases this year.However, the study warns that the pandemic was an added pressure for the American youth. The isolation in American children which was fueled by the pandemic 'poured fuel on a fire'.

As far as the Covid mortality rate is concerned, in 2020, it accounted for 0.24 deaths per 100,000 for individuals aged between 1 to 19 years. But the massive surge in injury deaths was 12 times higher at 2.80 deaths per 100,000.

Lead author Steven Woolf, MD, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University said,"I have not seen this in my career."

"For decades, the overall death rate among US children has fallen steadily, thanks to breakthroughs in prevention and treatment of diseases like premature births, pediatric cancer and birth defects," he said adding, "We now see a dramatic reversal of this trajectory, meaning that our children are now less likely to reach adulthood. This is a red flashing light. We need to understand the causes and address them immediately to protect our children."

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The data points out at a spike in suicides among children aged 10 to 19 in 2007. Further, the homicide rates in the same age bracket started to rise in 2013. Since then, then the mortality rate for suicide has increased by 70 percent while the homicide rate has increased by a third.

Woolf said the "likely contributors to both trends include increased access to firearms and a deepening mental health crisis among children and adolescents."

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