PHOENIX — Fewer children died last year compared to previous years, according to an annual report released by the state. According to the report, nearly half of the 791 child deaths were preventable. In 2023, 853 children died.
Preventable deaths include car crashes, firearms, suicide, infectious diseases, drownings and more.
According to the report, the number of children who died in crashes remained steady. Those who died from firearms and suicide decreased, while the number of deaths from infectious diseases and drownings increased.
“Four years ago, I didn’t know the statistic,” said Ashley Ackerman, the founder of Swim4Braxton. Ackerman lost her 4-year-old son to an accidental drowning in 2022.
Since then, she’s been trying to raise awareness through an organization she created in honor of her son, Braxton. They’re trying to raise money to help others pay for swim lessons or pool fences.
"When I hear that those numbers went up, while we're trying to do this work and bring attention to it, it hurts because I don't want people to feel this. I don't want people to live with what we lived through and what we live through every day,” she said.
The report states 36 children drowned last year. That’s more than the previous year of 31 deaths in 2023 and 30 deaths in 2022.
Leading risks for drowning include a child’s inability to swim, lack of supervision, lack of a pool barrier and more, according to the report.
“If you can't afford it and you're financially in a tough spot, there are resources. There are groups, there's coalitions, there's grants. There are tons of ways to get the support, and you just have to do the work,” Ackerman said.
The Children’s Action Alliance, an organization aimed at improving child well-being in the state, said they go to the legislature to lobby for more funding for child-centered programs, health and more.
"Every time we lose a child, we know there’s a family grieving and asking themselves what they could have done differently. As a community we need to ask that, too, because when we see a child died from a heat exposure, or to a viral infection that we could’ve helped earlier and prevented a death, those are obligations we need to take on as a community,” said January Contreras, the CEO of the Children’s Action Alliance. “We are the adults in the room, and it’s really up to us to do our best to do right by kids.”
Both Contreras and Ackerman say there needs to be more emphasis on children’s safety, giving the same example of how many rallied around the use of seat belts.
“Those are kind of some of the actions and really movements that we need between parents and partners and community and business and health care to help us prevent deaths,” Contreras said.
The report has a list of recommendations to help reduce the number of deaths in multiple areas. For drowning, they recommended increasing the availability of swimming lessons, improving pool fences and barriers, and increasing the availability of drowning prevention programs. As for the number of kids dying to infectious diseases, they’re recommending health departments and providers to promote vaccinations and vaccine confidence.
You can read the full report here.
