Monday, May 30, 2022

Children in America - some remarkable figures

From an eye opening NPR article "The US is uniquely terrible at protecting children from gun violence", this table:


What are the equivalent figures in Australia, I wondered.  I can't find a site that lumps all children up to 19 together, but there is this:



You would have to suspect that an awful lot of the third column is made up of 20 to 24 year olds.   I strongly suspect that the Australian death rate for up to 19 year olds might be around 3 to 4 per 100,000, and therefore below that of the US.  But how substantially below - I don't know.

PS:  on another positive note (for Australia, at least), it's surprising to read of the reduction in youth deaths overall in the period 1999 to 2019:

Between 1999 and 2019, among young people aged 15–24:

  • the death rate fell by 44%, from 72 deaths per 100,000 young people in 1999 to 41 deaths per 100,000 in 2019
  • the rate fell for both males (down 46%, from 105 to 57 per 100,000) and females (down 39%, from 38 to 23)
  • the rate fell by 45% across both age groups: for those aged 15–19, from 59 to 32 deaths per 100,000; for those aged 20–24, 86 to 48 deaths per 100,000

 I don't know the explanation for that.... 


Update:   I just thought to look up the rate of children killed by firearms in Australia.  Haven't found it yet, but there is a study showing the rate of childhood injuries from firearms (not deaths) in NSW in a recent period is .8 per 100,000 population.   The rate of actual death from those injuries would, of course, be substantially lower.



1 comment:

Not Trampis said...

disgraceful