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Published on: 11/15/2001
Last Visited: 7/4/2008
The research may help parents keep a closer and age-appropriate eye on their children at where they are most vulnerable, says Dr. Ruth Brenner, an investigator with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).
"We've known from regional studies that infants were most likely to drown in bathtubs, toddlers in swimming pools and older children in other bodies of water, and now we've confirmed that nationally.What this study shows is that we need a multi-faceted approach to prevent drowning.Drowning continues to be a big problem in this country," says Brenner.
More than 1,500 Americans under age 20 drowned in 1998, and 93 percent of those deaths were unintentional and not boating-related, the study says.
Brenner and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau reviewed more than 1,420 death certificates for drowning victims, starting in 1995.
"We looked at actual copies of death certificates of children from birth to 19 years old and extracted information on the specific site of drowning and used that data to classify the site," Brenner says.
"Of the 1,420 drownings, 57 were in salt water," Brenner says, "So there were some in salt water, but much fewer than in other sites.There were 669 in freshwater, 435 in swimming pools, which includes Jacuzzis, hot tubs and the like, and 125 were at domestic sites -- bathtubs and buckets."
"But a fair number of these drownings were at other sites as well," Brenner says."Among toddlers ages 1 to 4, about 25 percent of the drownings were at freshwater sites like ponds and lakes.And among adolescents males, particularly African-Americans, there was an increased risk for drowning in a swimming pool."
Other studies have shown that black males over age 5 are at higher risk from drowning than white males, Brenner says.After that age, the risk of black males drowning in a swimming pool was up to 15 times greater than white males.
"Our study really didn't look at the reasons for these drownings, and it's something that needs to be examined more carefully," Brenner says.
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Brenner says the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations to prevent drowning should be followed.
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SOURCES: Interviews with Ruth Brenner, M.D., M.P.H., investigator, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, Md., and Angela Mickalide, Ph.D., program director, National Safe Kids Campaign, Washington, D.C.; July 2001 Pediatrics
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