Canada's mortality rate from childhood injury is significantly higher than the rate in several other industrialized nations, a UNICEF report indicates (www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/repcard2e.pdf) , but it is significantly lower than the rate south of the border.
The Canadian rate of 9.7 deaths per 100 000 children aged 1 to 14 is almost twice the Swedish rate (5.2) and much higher than the rate in the United Kingdom (6.1) — the OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) countries with the lowest rates.
The UNICEF report, Child Deaths by Injury in Rich Nations, contains the first standardized ranking for injury- related mortality rates for children. The report covers 26 of the world's richest nations and ranks Canada 10th, with an “average record of child deaths”; the US ranked 23rd, with 14.1 deaths per 100 000 children.
The rankings were created from World Health Organization mortality data compiled from 1991 to 1995. More than 125 000 children died of injuries among OECD member states during that period. The report says that between 1971 and 1975, Canada and the US had similar rates of injury-related childhood mortality (24.8 and 27.8 per 100 000, respectively) but by the 1990s Canada had reduced its rate to 9.7 while the US “languished” at 14.1. Despite the improvement, Safe Kids, a national prevention and awareness organization affiliated with the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, says injury prevention receives disproportionately low funding.
The UNICEF report says injury is now the leading killer of children in every industrialized country, claiming more than 20 000 lives annually. The most prevalent cause of death is traffic accidents (41%), followed by other unintentional accidents (16%) and drowning (15%)