Homicide is a leading cause of death in kids, and rates are rising, study finds
By Jen Christensen, CNN
Published 11:04 AM EST, Mon December 19, 2022
CNN — Homicide is a leading cause of death for children in the United States, a new study says, and the overall rate has increased an average of 4.3% each year for nearly a decade. Black boys were killed more than any other group, and firearms were the most common weapon used in children’s deaths, according to the study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
From 1999 to 2020, 38,362 US children were homicide victims, the researchers found. The overall homicide rate had an especially “precipitous” rise from 2019 to 2020, with rates increasing across several demographics, the study says. In that time period alone, the number of children who were killed in a homicide rose 27.7%.
The marked increase may be partly driven by the general trend in firearm-related homicides of children, which rose 47.7% between 2019 and 2020, the study says. Overall homicide rates increased the most for boys, rising 16.1% between 2018 and 2020. There was a decline in homicides among girls between 1999 and 2020, however.
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A jump in firearm injuries
A separate study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics found that the rates of firearm injuries treated at children’s hospitals in the US significantly increased during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic and stayed elevated throughout 2021. The researchers compared the number of firearm injuries treated at children’s hospitals between April 2020 and December 2021 against those from April 2018 to December 2019. There were 1,815 firearm injuries in the earlier period and 2,759 during the pandemic, a 52% increase.
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https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/19/health/homicide-child-death/index.html
A lot of this was actual "caught in the crossfire" deaths.