• Chart of the day: What kills young Americans

      01/04/2013
      Austin Frakt

    Guns do a lot of the killing. From Judith and Sean Palfrey in NEJM:

    mortality young

    @afrakt

     
      Explaining Research
      guns, mortality
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    • by Ann on January 4th, 2013 at 06:28

      You forced me to look up what neoplasm is. I would assume non-gun-related deaths are mainly car accidents? Excellent graphic.

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      • by Austin Frakt on January 4th, 2013 at 06:39

        That seems like a good assumption to me. To confirm it, one would need to hunt through the CDC data and documents. It’s probably not too hard, but not something I’m taking on at the moment. Another approach is to email the authors. Should be easy to find contact info via Google or on the JAMA site. If you do any of this, please let me know what you learn.

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        • by Ken Houghton on January 4th, 2013 at 14:54

          8,709 motor vehicle deaths for 2010, of which about 7,000 are ages 15-24, using the WISQARS link sourced in the JAMA article. (Btw, around 7:1 for 15-19 and 5:1 for 20-24 for White/Black ratio, but “only” <4:1 for 0-9. Null hypothesis: white children have more access to cars before they are fully ready to drive.

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    • by Claire Boissevain-Crooke on January 4th, 2013 at 07:55

      Deaths from accidental overdose of opiates now exceeds car wrecks. I’m afraid I don’t have the link, but this data is from on a PowerPoint by Christopher Jones of the CDC who recently presented at a conference on the opioid abuse epidemic.

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    • by PK on January 4th, 2013 at 09:11

      Guns seem to be the weapon of choice for intentional deaths (i.e., 70% of murders and and 52% of suicides), with the number of gun-related suicides outnumbering gun-related murders almost 2:1. Accidental gun-deaths are still quite few by comparison.

      Overall, accidents far outnumber intentional deaths in 2010 according to the CDC

      Poison 42,917
      Drugs 40.393
      Suicide 38,364 (52%or 19,392 by gun)
      Autos 35,498
      Falls 26,852
      Booze 25,692
      Murder 16,259 (70% or 11,078 by gun)
      Drowning 4,521
      Guns 606 (accidental)

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    • by Ann on January 4th, 2013 at 09:22

      Because the 1-24 age group includes young children, car accidents still dominate.

      AGE
      1-4 5-14 15-24 Total
      Accidents
      Car 444 895 7209 8548
      Other 923 731 4806 6460

      Deaths: Preliminary Data 2010
      http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_04.pdf

      Feel free to delete the post if formatting messes up

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    • by Ron on January 4th, 2013 at 09:27

      Looks to me that NON-gun related injury is over 50% of the causes.
      But your post comments on guns.

      That seems to be a different approach than you take with most graphs.

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      • by Austin Frakt on January 4th, 2013 at 09:56

        Don’t be silly. “Guns do a lot of the killing,” is what I wrote. I trust readers can read the chart and see why I didn’t say “most” or “all”. I’ve also written a lot about drugs (substance use, really) on this blog, which does some killing. Autos have come up too. What, exactly, is your concern?

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        • by Ann on January 4th, 2013 at 11:53

          So is it safe to say that if there were fewer guns we would see fewer gun deaths? My guess is it in not safe to say that, but we shall see.

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        • by Ron on January 4th, 2013 at 13:00

          I wasn’t commenting about the verbage you put at the top of the article.

          My point is that on most of the graphs on this blog, no matter the content involved, unless there is a very significant percentage of whatever the discussion is about, the authors tend to disregard it and try to point out what is major or significant. In this case it appears the non-gun injuries fit the bill.

          But the comment is about guns.

          It just seems very out of character with the rest of this blog.

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          • by Austin Frakt on January 4th, 2013 at 13:13

            I find your comment bizarre. Sorry. It’s a chart. I made one comment. By your own admission, you’re not even talking about it. So, what are you talking about?

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            • by Ron on January 4th, 2013 at 13:34

              I’m talking about this chart as an “outlier” of sorts when compared to how other charts are dealt with in making your points. You, and others, seem to emphasize what the major issues are, but in this case the chart doesn’t line up. I’m sorry if I’m not making this clear enough, but I can’t do any better.

              Anyways, I also don’t see why you are using terms like “silly” and “bizarre” when commenting back. If others did that, you would quickly point it out.

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            • by Austin Frakt on January 4th, 2013 at 13:44

              But your comment is bizarre to me because you fail to point out how this chart is an outlier. You say you are not talking about my mention of gun deaths playing a large role. What, then, is troubling you? (I’ve now pursued this a few times. If you just won’t answer it clearly, I have to judge this whole episode to be silly. Sorry. I call ’em like I see ’em. Prove me wrong and spell it out for me like I’m stupid.)

              For the record, I am not calling you bizarre or silly, just a discussion in which I am accused of something with no evidence. I strongly object to that.

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          • by cawley on January 4th, 2013 at 14:59

            “…unless there is a very significant percentage of whatever the discussion is about …”

            20% is not “very significant”? Especially when the other column represents total mortal injuries from every other source combined?

            But I’m sure you would have made the same comment if the post would have been any of the other causes of death by injury …

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          • by Ron on January 4th, 2013 at 20:09

            I guess if you don’t see it, then you don’t see it. I’m not going to tag most of the posts in this blog when it’s very obvious to me.

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    • by Jim Brown on January 4th, 2013 at 18:19

      The only segment of gun deaths easily improved is the accidental ones.

      Homicide deaths are much less subject to reduction via ugly gun laws. If the intent is to feloniously kill someone multiple alternative methods are available.

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    • by Paul Nelson on January 4th, 2013 at 22:09

      The original data can be found at the National Center for Health Statistics. “Death In the United States, 2010.” http://www.cdc/gov/nchs/databriefs/db99.htm For 2010, it shows that death by homicide and suicide represented 25% of all deaths between age 1-24 years. I believe it is the largest over-all cause. The “mindless menace of violence” cited by Senator Robert Kenedy in 1968 continues unabated. I highly recommend listening to his speech given to the City Club in Cleveland, Ohio the day after the death of the Reverend Martin Luther King. It can be found on Wikipedia.

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