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This Child Fatality information provided by the Injury & Violence Prevention section of the Office of Disease Prevention & Epidemiology.
1997 Oregon Child Fatality Review Annual Report III. Fatalities Occurring in Oregon, 1997 Preliminary death certificate data indicate that 533 children aged 0-17 died in Oregon in 1997. One in 13 of these deaths was intentionally caused by child abuse, homicide, or suicide. One in four was unintentionally caused by neglect, unintentional firearm discharge, motor vehicle crash, fire, drowning, poisoning, suffocation, or fall. In all of these deaths, factors can be identified that put children at risk of dying or sustaining critical injury. These types of death are the reason for, and focus of, the Child Fatality Review (CFR) process. The 1997 CFR data base contains case-specific and situation-specific information surrounding 245 children's deaths that were attended by a medical examiner. These represent 46% of the total childhood fatalities that occurred in Oregon. In those fatalities which involved a medical examiner but were not included in the data base, most often the incident that led to their death occurred in another state. Age Distribution More than half of the children who died in Oregon in 1997 were under one year of age. The second highest number of deaths occurred in the 15-17 year old age group. While most of the infant fatalities were due to natural causes, unintentional injuries were the leading cause of death in all other age groups. Table 1 shows the manner of death and the leading causes of death by age group.
The second leading cause of death in Oregonians aged 10-17 is suicide. Trend analysis (chi square, p<.05) of 1990-1996 child fatalities shows an increasing trend in only one injurious death category: motor vehicle crash deaths in children aged 5-14. There were no increasing or decreasing trends in any other injurious death category, including suicide, homicide, 0-4 and 15-17 motor vehicle crash, drowning, and fire. These data concern children who died in Oregon in 1997. It does not include Oregon residents who died in other states and does include non-residents who died in Oregon. For statistics on resident child fatality see Oregon Vital Statistic Annual Report Volume II.
Males died in greater numbers than females. This difference was more pronounced among the cases reviewed than in the total number of childhood deaths. Overall, 315 males died compared to 218 females. In the 245 fatalities reviewed, 160 males died compared to 85 females. Females died in numbers equal or nearly equal to males from suicide, unexplained infant death, suffocation and strangulation, shaken baby syndrome, and poisoning. Males died in greater numbers from motor vehicle crashes, falls, firearm shootings, drowning, and fires. The child abuse and neglect deaths as a group included equal numbers of females and males. Race and Ethnicity Compared to all children who died in Oregon in 1997, white children were underrepresented in the case review data base. Although whites make up 92% of Oregonians 0-17, they were the most underrepresented racial/ethnic group in the mortality data, with 89% of the total child deaths and 82% of the reviewed cases.1 African Americans were overrepresented, making up 2.4% of the population but 5% of the total deaths that occurred and 8% of the reviewed deaths.1 This is a consistent finding across all categories of death; in fact, infant mortality in Oregon's African American children is three times that of white children. The fact that African American children are overrepresented in these data sets is not unique, but is a consistent finding both nationally and in Oregon.2 Overall, Asian children were slightly underrepresented making up 3.5 % of the population, 2.6% the deaths that occurred, and 3.3% of the reviewed cases. American Indian children represent 1.8% of the Oregon population, 2.3% of deaths that occurred, and 2.1% of the reviewed cases.1 Oregonians of Hispanic background make up 8.6% of the state's child population. The 60 Hispanic children who died in Oregon in 1997 represented 11% of the child fatalities. Sixteen Hispanic deaths (6.6%) were included in the fatality review cases. It is important to note that this is not a mutually exclusive category; that is, a child who is a member of a cultural Hispanic population is also counted in a racial category. |
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