Catherine Rusoff
The national increase in accidental drowning deaths at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic it was disproportionately worse for black people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday — a finding in line with long-standing disparities.
Compared to 2019, drowning rates increased among Black people by 22.2% in 2020 and 28.3% in 2021. Drowning rates were the worst overall for Black people, as well as American Indians and Native Americans. of Alaska in those first two years.
In 2022, the largest increase occurred among Hispanics. For them, drowning deaths that year rose 24.8% above the levels observed in 2019, before the pandemic.
“Drowning is a serious public health problem. Drowning can happen to anyone at any time as long as there is access to water. It can be quick, silent and deadly,” said Dr. Debra Houry, CDC chief medical officer , told reporters on Tuesday. .
Overall, the CDC attributes about 4,000 deaths per year to accidental drowning. Health officials and experts have previously warned of a rise in drowning deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the highest rates among children under five years of age.
“The exact cause of the recent increase in drowning death rates and widening disparities is unknown,” said Tessa Clemens, health scientist in the CDC Division of Injury Prevention.
Clemens cited a shortage of swimming lessons and lifeguards during the pandemic, as well as greater social barriers that limit access to safety precautions, as among the possible explanations for the increases and disparities.
O to study published Tuesday, took a closer look at the demographic breakdowns of drowning trends in the first three years of the pandemic, along with new federal research findings on the topic.
It comes as data accounted for by the agency for 2023 suggests that unintentional drowning deaths may have slowed to near pre-pandemic levels. At least 3,845 deaths in 2023 have been attributed to unintentional drownings, although the numbers have not yet been finalized.
Drowning deaths by race
Racial disparities in drowning deaths are not new. Before the pandemic, the CDC reported the space between drowning death rates among whites and blacks were rising.
“We saw these disparities before the pandemic and for several decades. It is concerning that there are increases in drowning rates among some of these groups who were already at an unequally higher risk of drowning,” Clemens said.
One piece of information that could help explain the disparity in drowning deaths could be a gap in swimming skills.
In its new study, the CDC found that more than a third of black adults and about a quarter of Hispanic adults said they couldn’t swim when asked in an agency-funded survey in November. This figure was several times higher than that of white adults, of whom 6.9% said they did not know how to swim.
More than half of white adults also say they have taken swimming lessons, compared to 36.9% of black adults and 28.1% of Hispanic adults.
Black adults were also less likely to spend time in pools and other bodies of water, suggesting that drowning death rates may be even worse for black people than the headline numbers suggest.
More than half of white adults said they had spent time in a pool or other body of water in the past six months. Less than a third of black adults spent time in swimming pools and only about a quarter in other bodies of water.
“Findings related to adult exposure to recreational water suggest that population-based drowning rates may be underestimating disparities,” the study authors wrote.
Drowning deaths by age
Although drowning death rates continue to be the worst for children ages 1 to 4 years old, the study concluded that deaths did not increase significantly in 2020.
The authors say this complicates the theory that young children spending more time at home during the pandemic, swimming in places like backyard pools, could explain the pandemic’s rise. Instead, these children’s mortality rates only increased in 2021 and 2022.
That year, CDC study authors found that the largest increase in drowning death rates occurred in young adults ages 15 to 24, increasing 31.3% compared to 2019.
Although the increases have not been as large, the next highest rates of drowning deaths after young children remain in the elderly, where rates have been worsening for decades.
Seniors at least 65 were also the least likely to tell the November CDC survey that they had ever taken swimming lessons across all age groups. In this age group, 18.6% say they do not know how to swim.
“More work is needed to understand the circumstances of drowning among older adults in the United States and to develop personalized drowning prevention strategies,” the study authors said.
