I heard this on NPR today on my way to the office:
Nearly a million children worldwide die every year as a result of unintentional injuries, and the biggest killer is traffic accidents, according to a report from the World Health Organization.This is startling. The nearly 4 minute radio piece also included the top five causes of unintentional injury:
1. Road crashes: 260,000 children a year are killed and 10 million are injured. This is the leading cause of death among 10 to 19 year-olds.
2. Drowning: 175,000 killed a year while up to 3 million children survive each year. But due to the brain damage invovled in some of the surviviors, nonfatal drowning has the highest average lifetime health and economic impact of any type of injury.
3. Burns: Burns kill nearly 96,000 children a year.
4. Falls: Nearly 47,000 children die due to falls each year.
5. Poisoning: Over 45,000 children die each year from unintended poisoning.
