A SPECIAL REPORT SERIES BY THE N.C. DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES, DIVISION OF
HEALTH SERVICES, STATE CENTER FOR HEALTH STATISTICS, P.O. BOX 2091, RALEIGH, N.C. 27602
No.29 ^ t -id 4 December, 1983
Death Among North Carolina's Children and Youth
by
Kathryn surles
and
Cordon Daughtry
Of all human events, probably none is more disturb¬
ing than the death of a child. Thus, it is the intention of
the Division of Health Services to monitor and report
those events at regular intervals in the hope that
increased awareness will result in appropriate interven¬
tion. A special focus of the present report is poor child¬
ren, specifically, those whose families receive AFDC—
Aid to Families with Dependent Children.
For the period 1974-78, a previous report (1) examined
leading causes of death and specific types of accidental
death among age groups under 20. Except for infants
under 1 year of age, accidents were the leading cause of
death in each age group with motor vehicle fatalities,
drownings, and death by fire leading the list of specific
types. Nonwhite and male youths were particularly
prone to accidental death, and for leading categories of
accidents, the state’s fatality rates were found to be sub¬
stantially higher than the nation’s.
For age groups under 20 and for all ages 1-19, Table 1
provides numbers and rates for leading causes of death
during 1979-82 with percent changes since 1974-78. In
general, the percent changes are not biased by cause-of-
death classification changes (see footnotes 4 and 9 of the
table).
By and large, the data of Table 1 are encouraging,
particularly at ages below 15. While corresponding U.S.
data are not available beyond data year 1978, the down¬
turns depicted in Table 1 suggest that N.C. rates may be
approaching the lower national rates, particularly in the
case of motor vehicle fatalities among younger
children and congenital anomalies at ages greater than
one. For all ages under 20, the death rate for pneumonia
and influenza has also dropped substantially, by about 50
percent between 1974-78 and 1979-82. Unfortunately,
the state’s infant homicide rate more than doubled and
the suicide and heart disease rates at ages 15-19 each
increased by about one-fifth between the two time peri¬
ods studied. Just between 1981 and 1982, the number of
suicides per 1,000 residents rose 30 percent, from 8.7 (48
deaths) to 11.3 (60 deaths). White males accounted for a
preponderance of the increase and constituted 71 per¬
cent of the state’s teenage suicides in 1982.
Between 1981 and 1982, the state's infant mortality rate
also rose, for the first time since 1978. The 4 percent
increase, to 13.7 deaths per 1,000 live births, was due
largely to an increase in the nonwhite neonatal death
rate which itself rose 15 percent. Based on a study cur¬
rently in progress, the increase largely involved non¬
white mothers who would not be considered at high risk
on the basis of their age, education, parity, or previous
pregnancy outcomes.
In addition to the leading-cause categories of Table 1,
trends in cystic fibrosis (CF) and leukemia mortality have
been examined. Between 1974-78 and 1979-82, the CF
death rate for residents under age 20 dropped 44 percent
while the leukemia death rate for those ages dropped 16
percent. A previous study of leukemia mortality (2)
revealed notable reductions in the lymphoid rate among
younger children (0-9) and the myeloid rate among
older youth (10-19).
