Arizona Department of Health Services releases 2017 child fatality report
Dec 7, 2018, 8:18 PM
(Arizona Department of Health Services Photo)
PHOENIX — The Arizona Department of Health Services released its 2017 child fatality review report in November and the amount of preventable deaths increased for the third consecutive year.
In 2017, 806 children under the age of 18 died in Arizona, with 337 of those deaths (42 percent) determined to have been preventable.
The prior year, 783 underage children died in Arizona and 330 of those deaths, also 42 percent, were preventable.
In 2015, 301 deaths from children under the age of 18 in Arizona were deemed preventable.
AZHDS considers homicides, suicides and accidental deaths as preventable deaths.
“We found that there was an increase [in preventable deaths] with the most common cause being unsafe sleep,” Tomi St. Mars, chief for the Office of Injury Prevention with Arizona Department of Health Services told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Friday.
St. Mars said her biggest concern was children who died from sleep-related suffocation.
That number increased from 80 to 84 in 2017 and all but one of those deaths were preventable.
The 83 sleep-related suffocation deaths accounted for almost 25 percent of all preventable deaths during the year.
“Most of those deaths were infants under the age of one,” St. Mars said. “We found that babies were placed on their stomach or sleeping with an adult or other children in 60 percent of the cases that were reviewed.
St. Mars urged parents and caregivers to be mindful of choking hazards in the living area of children.
Motor vehicle crash and other transportation deaths in children decreased eight percent overall from 2016, but an increase in an age category concerned St. Mars.
The report, in its 25th year, found that the number of motor vehicle and other transport deaths increased 129 percent — from seven to 16 — in children aged five through nine years of age.
“Remember that kids need to be buckled up and in car seats that are appropriate for them,” St. Mars said.
KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Nailea Leon contributed to this report