Health Topics
Injury & Violence (including suicide)

Unintentional Injuries, Violence, and the Health of Young People

Unintentional Injuries & Violence

Injuries include unintentional injuries (such as those caused by motor vehicle crashes and fires) and intentional injuries (violence and suicide).

• An injury is defined as "unintentional or intentional damage to the body resulting from acute exposure to thermal, mechanical, electrical, or chemical energy or from the absence of such essentials as heat or oxygen."¹
• Injuries are not accidents. They can be prevented by changing the environment, individual behavior, products, social norms, legislation, and governmental and institutional policy.
• Injuries are the leading cause of death and disability for people aged 1 to 34 years in the United States.²
• Injuries requiring medical attention, or resulting in restricted activity, affect more than 20 million children and adolescents (250 per 1,000 persons) and cost $17 billion annually for medical treatment.³
• Violence is the "threatened or actual use of physical force or power against another person, against oneself, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, or deprivation."⁴

Leading Causes of Injury Mortality and Morbidity Among Children and Adolescents

• Approximately 67% of all deaths among children and adolescents aged 5-19 years result from injury-related causes: 48% from motor vehicle injuries (occupants and pedestrians combined), 21% from all other unintentional injuries, 16% from homicides, and 14% from suicides.⁵

Motor Vehicle-Related Injuries

• Among children and adolescents aged 5 to 19 years, 68% of unintentional injury deaths are due to motor vehicle crashes.⁵
• Traffic-related injuries also include those sustained while walking, riding a bicycle, or riding a motorcycle. In 2005, 29% of motor vehicle-related deaths were bicyclists.⁶

Five Leading Causes of Death
and Number of Deaths
United States�05, Ages 5�

Source: WISQARS⁵

Violence

• In the United States, minority males bear most of the burden of homicide victimization. In 2005, among males aged 15 to 19 years, the homicide rate was 3.5 per 100,000 among white non-Hispanics; 7.9 per 100,000 among Asian/Pacific Islanders; 15.4 per 100,000* among American Indian/Alaskan Natives; 27.8 per 100,000 among Hispanics; and 62.1 per 100,000 among Blacks.⁵
• In 2009, 14% of high school students seriously considered attempting suicide, and 11% made a plan about how they would attempt suicide during the 12 months before the survey.⁷
• The United States child homicide rate, 2.6 per 100,000 for children less than 15 years of age, is five times greater than the combined rate of 25 other industrialized countries.⁸
• An estimated 302,100 women and 92,700 men are forcibly raped each year in the United States. More than half (54%) of the female rape victims were less than 18 years of age, and 22% were less than 12 years of age when they were first raped.⁹

* Total number of deaths = 20.  Rates based upon 20 or fewer deaths may be unstable.  Use with caution.

Five Leading Causes of Injury Death
 and Number of Injury Deaths
United States�05, Ages 5-19⁵

Source: WISQARS⁵

Context of Injury Occurrence

• Approximately 4 million children and adolescents are injured at school each year.³
• More than 1 million serious sports-related injuries occur each year to adolescents aged 10-17 years.¹⁰
• In 2005, firearms were the mechanism of injury in approximately 84% of homicides and 46% of suicides among children and adolescents aged 5-19 years.⁵
• From 1997 to 2002, 9,622 child passengers aged 0 to 14 years died in motor vehicle crashes. Of these children, 2,335 (24%) were killed in crashes involving drinking drivers, and 68% of the deaths occurred while the child was riding with the drinking driver.¹¹

References

1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy People 2010. 2nd ed. 2 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2000.
    
2. Minino AM, Anderson RN, Fingerhut LA, Boudreault MA, Warner M. Deaths:  Injuries, 2002.  National Vital Statistics Reports; 54(10): 1-125.
    
3. Danseco ER, Miller TR, Spicer RS. Incidence and costs of 1987�94 childhood injuries: demographic break downs. Pediatrics 2000;105(2).
    
4. Foege WH, Rosenberg ML, Mercy JA. Public health and violence prevention. Current Issues in Public Health 1995;1:2�
    
5. CDC, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Office of Statistics and Programming. Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS). Online at http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/. Accessed October 8, 2008.
    
6. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Traffic Safety Fact: 2007 data, bicyclists and other cyclists. http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810986.PDF [pdf 310K].
    
7. CDC. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance—United States, 2009. [pdf 3.5M] MMWR 2010;59(SS-5):1�2.
    
8. CDC. Rates of homicide, suicide, and firearm related deaths among children� industrialized countries. Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report 1997;46:101�
    
9. Tjaden P, Thoennes N. Full report of the prevalence, incidence, and consequences of violence against women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey. Report for grant 93-IJ-CX-0012, funded by the National Institute of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Washington (DC): National Institute of Justice; 2000.
    
10. Bijur PE, Trumble A, Harel Y, Overpeck MD, Jones D, Scheidt PC. Sports and recreation injuries in US children and adolescents. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine 1995; 149:1009�.
     
11. Shults RA. Child passenger deaths involving drinking drivers桿nited States, 1997�02. Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report 2004;53(4):77�.

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Page last reviewed: February 09, 2010
Page last modified: May 10, 2010
Content source: National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Adolescent and School Health

Division of Adolescent and School Health
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Department of Health and Human Services