CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The child death rate in North Carolina has risen for another year, largely due to a dramatic increase in suicides and homicides, according to a report from the NC Child Fatality Task force.
The task force’s most recent report, which analyzes data from 2021, found that homicide — overwhelmingly carried out with a gun — was the leading cause of death for children 15 to 17 years old. Homicide was the fifth leading cause of death for children overall.
In 2021, North Carolina also saw the highest suicide rate in two decades, leaving 62 children dead that year. A 2021 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey showed 22% of North Carolina high school students had seriously considered attempting suicide.
For the third year in a row, infant mortality rates have stayed virtually the same, a disappointing metric given that North Carolina has consistency ranked among the 10 worst states for infant mortality.
Though the gap in infant death between Black and white babies decreased slightly in 2021, Black infants were still more than twice as likely to die as white infants.
Overall, child death rates have risen every year since 2019. Black and American Indian children have consistently had higher death rates than children of other races.
The number of child deaths in North Carolina due to gun injuries “skyrocketed” in 2020 and 2021, according to the report.
Guns were used in more than 70% of the 2021 suicides and homicides. The gun-related death rate among children is higher in North Carolina than the national average.
Between 2012 and 2021 more than 600 children in the state were killed by a gun, according to the task force’s data. Even more alarming, the report said that each year, there are about five times as many gun-related hospitalizations for children.
The task force made a number of recommendations to rein in the number of gun-related deaths, which many consider to be a public health crisis.
The group recommended that the state pass legislation to launch a firearm safety initiative that would focus on educating adult gun owners how to safely store the weapons.
A third of North Carolina high school students said they could get a loaded gun in less than an hour without their parents’ permission, according to a 2021 survey. Studies have also shown that most guns used in youth suicides come from home.
Making more mental health resources available to students at school is also imperative to reduce suicides, the task force said.
While national organizations recommend one school psychologist for every 250 students, the report noted that in North Carolina that ratio is closer to one for every 1,025.
The task force recommended allocating funds to increase the number of school nurses, counselors and psychologists to help address what it calls a “significant youth mental health crisis.”
The task force also suggested other steps to improve child death rates overall, including bolstering maternal health care and strengthening laws that make it safer for parents to surrender a newborn in the first seven days of their life.
“Sadly,” the report read, “many of the 2023 recommendations are being repeated from prior years because they have not yet fully advanced.”
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