Adolescent Mortality

In 2010, there were 10,887 deaths among adolescents aged 15–19 years, representing a rate of 49.4 per 100,000.¹ The rate of adolescent mortality declined by 7.7 percent from the previous year and 26.4 percent from 2000. This decline may be largely attributable to decreases in unintentional injury² which remains the leading cause of adolescent death, followed by homicide, suicide, cancer, and heart disease.

The mortality rate of adolescent males aged 15–19 was more than twice that of females in 2010 (69.6 versus 28.1 per 100,000, respectively). This disparity is largely due to higher rates of unintentional injury, homicide, and suicide death among male adolescents. For example, homicide death rates were more than five times higher among males than females (14.0 versus 2.3 per 100,000). Homicide and suicide, when combined, account for almost as many deaths as unintentional injuries among male adolescents.

Racial and ethnic disparities also exist, with non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native adolescents experiencing the highest rate of mortality among both males and females (138.6 and 57.6 per 100,000, respectively). Non-Hispanic Black males had the second highest rate of adolescent mortality (108.0 per 100,000) while non-Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander females had the lowest rate (16.0 per 100,000). Unintentional injury was the leading cause of death among male and female adolescents of all racial/ethnic groups, except non-Hispanic Black males, for whom homicide was the leading cause of death (data not shown in graph images or in data tables on this site).

The primary cause of unintentional injury death was motor vehicle crashes (63.8 percent), followed by poisoning (16.4 percent) which is the only unintentional injury mechanism to increase over the past decade.^1,2 Poisoning includes prescription drug overdoses. Homicide deaths to adolescents were predominantly attributable to firearms (84.8 percent) while both firearms and suffocation were leading mechanisms of suicide death (40.3 and 45.3 percent, respectively; data not shown in graph images or in data tables on this site).¹

1 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS). Accessed: October 23, 2012.

2 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Vital signs: Unintentional injury deaths among persons aged 0-19 years - United States, 2000-2009. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 2012 Apr 20;61:270-6

This image is described in the Data section.

This image is described in the Data section.