Pediatric mortality rates rising

Some troubling statistics published recently by Woolf et al. (2023) using CDC WONDER data:

Between 2019 and 2020, the all-cause mortality rate for ages 1 to 19 years increased by 10.7%, and it increased by an additional 8.3% between 2020 and 202…These increases, the largest in decades, followed a period of great progress in reducing pediatric mortality rates. Although most of the upsurge in pediatric mortality was attributable to deaths among older children (ages 10-19), all-cause mortality in younger children (ages 1-9) also increased in 2021 (by 8.4%).

There are also significant disparities in terms of which groups were impacted by the increased rates of mortality.

The increase in injury deaths that occurred in 2020 primarily involved males…non-Hispanic Black youths accounted for two-thirds (62.9%) of homicide victims aged 10 to 19 years; in 2021, the homicide rate among non-Hispanic Black youths aged 10 to 19 years was 6 times that of Hispanic youths and more than 20 times that of Asian/Pacific Islander non-Hispanic youths and White youths.

Moreover, gun violence has increased:

Firearms…are the leading cause of death among youths aged 1 to 19 years and accounted for nearly half (47.8%) of the increase in all-cause mortality in 2020

Some very sobering statistics indeed.