Racial, Ethnic Disparities Seen for Leading Causes of Youth Mortality

Disparities observed for nearly all leading causes of injury and disease associated with recent increases in youth mortality rates

By Lori Solomon HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, May 6, 2024 (HealthDay News) — There are racial and ethnic disparities for nearly all leading causes of injury and disease tied to youth mortality, according to a study published online May 4 in the Journal of the American Medical Association to coincide with the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies, held from May 2 to 6 in Toronto.

Elizabeth R. Wolf, M.D., from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in Richmond, and colleagues compared all-cause and cause-specific mortality trends (1999 to 2020) and rates (2016 to 2020) among youth with Hispanic ethnicity and non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian or Pacific Islander, Black, and White race. The analysis included youth (aged 1 to 19 years) identified using the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research database.

The researchers found that all-cause mortality ratios were 2.03 among American Indian or Alaska Native youth, 0.63 among Asian or Pacific Islander youth, 1.76 among Black youth, and 0.89 among Hispanic youth compared with White youth. For Black youth, the homicide rate was 12.81 per 100,000 or 10.20 times that of White youth. For American Indian or Alaska Native youth, the suicide rate was 11.37 per 100,000, or 2.60 times that of White youth. For Black youth, the firearm mortality rate was 12.88 per 100,000, which was 4.14 times that of White youth, while the firearm mortality rate of American Indian or Alaska Native youth was 6.67 per 100,000, which was 2.14 times that of White youth. Asthma mortality among Black youth was 1.10 per 100,000, which was 7.80 times that of White youth.

“In this study, racial and ethnic disparities were observed for almost all leading causes of injury and disease that were associated with recent increases in youth mortality rates,” the authors write.