California school shooting, people continue to mourn the victims (Visual China)
According to Russia Today TELEVISION (RT) reported on the 20th, a latest report by the Washington-based private non-profit organization "American Population Information Agency" (PRB) shows that although the adolescent and infant mortality rates in developed countries have declined, the related mortality rates in the United States have not changed, and even rise. In the United States, the phenomenon of young people dying from violence is more common than in other developed countries, which is worrying.
The report said the death rate for babies born in the United States in 2019 was almost three times that of Japan, Finland or Slovenia. The researchers attributed this difference to the high rate of preterm birth in the United States, as well as racial and economic inequality, which affect access to health care services.
In addition, these children face other dangers as they grow up. In the United States, unintentional injuries (including drug overdose), suicide and other homicide account for half of all deaths among people ages 10 to 14 and three-quarters of all deaths among people ages 15 to 24.
Infographic (Visual China)
RT notes that several factors significantly increase the likelihood of early death. U.S. men are 134 percent more likely to die early than women, and they are more than twice as likely to die by homicide or suicide, which the researchers blame on their propensity for risk-taking behavior. In addition, young people living in the southern United States are more likely to die, as are children from African-American families, children from low-level families, and children from single-parent families.
Suicide is known to be the second leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 24 in the United States, and although the above report uses pre-COVID-19 data, the number of suicides may have increased during lockdowns and school closures over the past two years. The National Institute of Mental Health has yet to release statistics for this period, but the number of people with depression and substance abuse did increase significantly in 2020.
Of the nearly 60,000 young people who died in the U.S. in 2019, 7,580 died from guns, 39 percent of them suicide and 61 percent of them were killed by him. And nearly a third of Americans who died by gunfire were under the age of 25.
The PRB proposes a range of policy options to reduce youth mortality in the United States: from higher benefits to funding child care, preschool education, housing, nutrition, and health care. However, some of these schemes are difficult to endorse in Washington politics. For example, the researchers recommend banning so-called "assault weapons" and establishing a licensing system and a government database of gun owners, but in a country that enshrines gun ownership in its constitution, this proposal could run into difficulties.
(Editor: WDQ)