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What
Kills Preschoolers?
Excerpt By Nancy A. Melville, HealthScoutNews
(HealthScoutNews)
-- Motor-vehicle accidents, child abuse and beatings, and pedestrian
injuries are the leading causes of trauma-related deaths among
preschool children, a recent study says.
The youngsters'
deaths most often resulted from a head injury, the researchers
say.
The findings
stem from data, submitted to 80 trauma centers nationwide, on
12,209 preschool-aged children. The kids had been admitted to
hospitals for injuries sustained between April 1995 and August
1999. Of the group, 444 of the children died, according to reports
from the National Pediatric Trauma Registry.
Car accidents
accounted for about 30 percent of the deaths, child abuse and
beatings totaled 21 percent and pedestrian injuries -- caused,
for instance, by a child running into a street and being struck
by a car -- reached 18 percent.
"The
goal of our research was to compare the injury characteristics
of hospitalized preschool children and measure those who die to
those who survive," says lead researcher Dr. Mary Christine
Bailey, a pediatric emergency physician at Children's Hospital
in Boston. Findings were presented at a recent meeting of the
Pediatric Academic Societies.
More youngsters
were admitted to a trauma center after they'd fallen somehow than
for any other reason -- 41 percent overall, the study says. But
the death rate from falls was well below the top three causes
of death.
Bailey says
the figures for motor vehicle accidents likely are attributable,
in part, to parents failing to buckle up their children properly.
"It's
very clear from this and other studies being conducted that people
are still very unaware of the importance of booster seats and
protecting kids in automobiles up to age 5," she says. "I
don't think that message has gotten out to the larger community
as well as it should have."
While the
death rate from beatings trailed motor vehicle accidents, the
researchers found that child-abuse injuries were five times more
likely to result in death than unintentional injuries.
The study
also found that the younger the child, the more likely he or she
was to die from their injuries -- regardless of the cause.
"The
data holds true that, as you go down the age range, the number
of deaths increases," Bailey says.
Dr. Gary Smith,
director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Children's
Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, says the high rate of death from beatings,
though disturbing, isn't surprising.
"Intentional
trauma to kids is more common than we would like to think,"
he says. "It is a leading cause of death."
Other leading
causes of death among preschoolers, Smith says, include drowning,
fire and suffocation.
"Drowning
is a huge cause of death in the young ages," he says. "Rates
tend to peak among 1- and 2-year-olds, and then later -- at around
age 15 -- it comes back up again."
"Fires
are a big cause because kids can't escape," he adds, "and
choking and suffocation for the younger ones is another huge cause
of death."
Of all the
figures on causes of deaths, however, Bailey says the deaths from
child abuse are perhaps the most startling.
"It's
important to recognize that despite everything we've tried to
do, abuse remains a significant cause of death in children,"
she says.
What To
Do
To learn more
about child safety, visit the
American Academy of Pediatrics online.
And for information
that could help you spot and prevent child abuse, go to
Prevent Child Abuse America.
Reference
Source 101
For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use
PreventDisease.com's "Quick
Prevention Resources".
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