What comes to mind when you think of the most common causes of death? When considering people between 1-44, the answer may surprise you. No, it's not cancer, or heart disease, or diabetes.
It's unintentional injury.
What is unintentional injury? Keep reading for a brief overview of everything you need to know about this grim but important topic.
What Is Unintentional Injury?
A simple definition of an unintentional injury is one that occurs without any plan or intent. Some common unintentional injuries include car accidents, drownings, falls, burns, and poisoning.
In the U.S. alone there are 39.5 million doctor visits each year for these types of injuries.
In New York, https://www.accidenthelpzone.com/ offers excellent resources for more information on unintentional injury, worker's compensation, and related topics.
Who Is at Risk?
An accident can happen to anyone at any time. But there are some risk factors that make it more likely for certain groups of people.
Low or Middle-Income Populations
The death rate for unintentional injuries is higher in low and middle-income countries than it is in more wealthy nations.
Besides death, another outcome of an unintentional injury is a disability that affects your life span. A full 90% of disabilities that were the result of an unintentional injury happened in low or middle-income countries!
Males
Men or boys are most likely to suffer from an unintentional injury or death than females. In low or middle-income countries, males make up almost 2/3 of unintentional deaths.
Men in their 30s or 40s are about three times more likely to die than females from a motorcycle crash.
Men between ages 25-34 are about 2.5 times more likely to die from poisoning than women.
The reason is likely that men tend to take more risks and also tend to have more physical and dangerous jobs, especially in lower-income populations.
Children
Moms and dads instinctively know the dangers kids face, and they are indeed significant.
Among very young kids (1-4) drowning is the most common cause of death. For kids between 5-9, it's the second most common. In fact, among the 10 people that die each day from unintentional drowning, 2 of them are kids.
For babies under one year old, accidental suffocation is the top cause of death.
Teenagers only make up 6% of total drivers but are the victims of 14% of unintentional car crash deaths.
Older Adults
People over 65 have different reasons to be wary. For this age group, accidental falls are the most common reason for an accidental death. Like teenagers, car accidents are also common in this age group, making it the second-most common unintentional death for older adults.
What Can I Do?
Of course, it is good to be aware of the stats and to take reasonable precautions like watching children carefully and obeying all safety regulations at work.
But, there is no way to predict when an accident will take place or to fully prevent one from happening. If you or a family member is the victim of an unintentional injury, you will want to find good legal counsel.
So, what is unintentional injury? Unfortunately, it is a common cause of death that affects all kinds of people. Be safe, and get legal help if you if the need arises.
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