How Kids Get Hurt

Can a parent imagine something worse than the death of a child? Perhaps only the thought that it might have been prevented.

An article recently published in The Washington Post reported that each year in the United States about 12,200 people younger than 19 die of unintentional injuries. Around the world, fatal injuries in children total 830,000 a year, a number roughly equal to all the children in Chicago. That’s 2,270 a day, of which at least 1,000 could have been prevented, experts say.

This huge toll of heartbreaking death sits atop a pyramid of nonfatal injury. In the United States, 9.2 million children visit the emergency room each year for unintentional injuries. Globally, about 690 children miss school or work, or go to the hospital, for every child accidentally killed.

Public health authorities are lifting the curtain on childhood injury. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month released an atlas and 114-page report on childhood injury. Simultaneously, the World Health Organization published a detailed report on the subject.