According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, unintentional deaths of children under the age of 19 declined by 29-percent nationally between 2000 and 2009.
However, Kelly Weidenbach, an epidemiologist with the Wyoming Department of Health, says there has not been a similar drop in Wyoming.
“The rate has dropped just a little bit in Wyoming but that change is not statistically significant, and if you look at individual years between 2000 and 2009 for Wyoming,” says Weidenbach. “The rates kind of bounced around. So unfortunately we’re not seeing that same drop in injury death rates in children here in Wyoming that we’re seeing nationally.”
Between 2000 and 2009, children aged 15-to-19 had the highest rates of unintentional death in the state, followed by the zero to 4 age group, and the 10 to 14 year set.
Nationally, the most common causes of death for children were motor vehicle crashes, suffocation, drowning, poisoning, fires and falls. Weidenbach says motor vehicle crashes account for the largest proportion of unintentional deaths to young people in Wyoming.
