Injuries and violence affect everyone, regardless of age, race, or economic status. In the first half of life, more Americans die from injuries and violence — such as motor vehicle crashes, suicide, or homicides — than from any other cause, including cancer, HIV, or the flu. This makes injury the leading cause of death among persons aged 1-44.
Top Ten Leading Causes of Death in the U.S. for Ages 1-44 from 1981-2020
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- Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for Americans aged 1-44 years old.
- Unintentional injuries include opioid overdoses (unintentional poisoning), motor vehicle crashes, and unintentional falls.
- Suicide is now the 2nd leading cause of death for this 1-44 age group, and numbers of suicides continue to rise.
- Homicide remains in the top 5 leading causes of death for the 1-44 age group.
Unintentional Injury Deaths in the U.S. for Ages 1-44 from 1981-2020
Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for Americans aged 1-44 years old. The leading causes of death for unintentional injury include: unintentional poisoning (e.g., drug overdoses), unintentional motor vehicle (m.v.) traffic, unintentional drowning, and unintentional falls.
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The following are the latest U.S. statistics available from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the CDC, and other sources: Unintentional injuries continue to be the fifth leading cause of death overall, and the leading cause of death for those under 35 years of age. The top three causes of fatal unintentional injuries include motor vehicle crashes, poisoning, and falls. Suffocation was the leading mechanism
of unintentional injury death among infants. In 2010, 33,687 motor vehicle-related deaths occurred. In 2010, 33,041 unintentional poisoning deaths occurred. In 2010, 26,009 unintentional falls deaths occurred.
Preventable deaths now claim 466 lives per day in the U.S., according to recently updated statistics.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the number of deaths from unintentional, preventable injuries – aka accidents – rose 5.3% between 2016 and 2017.
Preventable deaths in one year have now reached their highest number in recorded U.S. history: 169,936 in 2017.
Of the three leading causes of death, preventable injuries was the only category to increase, largely because of the opioid crisis. An American is killed about every three minutes by a drug overdose, a motor vehicle crash, a fall, a drowning, a choking incident or another preventable incident.
Here are the top 10 causes of preventable deaths, the number that occurred in 2017 and the percent change from 2016:
- Poisoning (including drug overdose): 64,795, +11.1%
- Motor vehicle: 40,231, -0.2%
- Falls: 36,338, +4.8%
- Suffocation by ingestion, inhalation: 5,216, +8%
- Drowning: 3,709, -2%
- Fires, flames, smoke: 2,812, +3%
- Mechanical suffocation: 1,730, -2.9%
- Natural heat, cold: 1,269, +6.7%
- Struck by, against: 806, +2%, and
- Machinery: 572, -6.2%.
In response to the CDC report, the National Safety Council says there is no such thing as an accident. The NSC says we know what to do so save lives, but as a nation, we haven’t consistently prioritized safety at work, home and on the road.
Life expectancy declines
Another CDC statistics shows life expectancy in the U.S. declined in 2017, marking three consecutive years in which the number either stayed the same or declined. That’s the longest period of decline since the late 1910s, when a flu pandemic and World War I drove the number down, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Deaths by drug overdose and suicide are behind the current trend.
Fred Hosier is the editor of Safety News Alert and has spent more than 20 years covering safety. He's been in the communications business since 1985, including 11 years in radio.