Child Drowning

Mortality rate/1,000
Drownng proportion of all 1-4 year deaths
Figure 5: Proportional mortality by cause in children 1-4 years old, Matlab, Bangladesh, 1983-2003
35
30
25
20
70
60
50
40
15
10
5
0
30
20
10
0
All cause mortality Drowning mortality drowning % all 1-4 deaths
Source: Health and Demographic Surveillance System Report, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Dhaka, 2003.
Figure 5 shows a stable rate of fatal drowning over the 20 years reported from 1983 to the end of the
reporting period in 2003. The red line at the bottom of the chart (read on the left axis) shows drowning
mortality in children 1-4 years old. It is essentially unchanged at about 4 drowning deaths per 1,000
children over the 20 year period 1983 to 2003. As other causes of mortality (blue line, rates read on left
axis) have decreased over the period due to widespread implementation of effective interventions, the
proportion of drowning mortality as a percentage of all deaths has increased. This is shown by the
yellow line whose value can be read on the vertical axis on the right side of the chart. While responsible
for 9 per cent of deaths among children aged 1-4 in 1983 (yellow line, right axis), drowning was
responsible for 57 per cent of deaths among the same age group 20 years later in 2003 (yellow line,
right axis).
Although figure 5 excludes infants, drowning is a significant killer of infants as well as children aged 1-4,
as can be seen in Figure 6.
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