Child Drowning

4. THE BASIS FOR INTERVENTION
Drowning is a significant cause of death in infants and a leading killer of children after infancy in the
Asian LMICs surveyed. There are a number of considerations that directly result from this, which
provide the basis for prompt action by the international community in moving this neglected cause of
child mortality onto the child health agenda.
4.1 DROWNING DEATHS IN LMICS ARE PREVENTABLE
The PRECISE effectiveness analysis in rural Bangladesh provides evidence that child drowning deaths in
LMICs are preventable in resource-constrained settings in a sustainable manner. The case is
strengthened further by the cost-effectiveness analysis, which has shown that preventing these deaths
should be given as high priority as other child survival interventions. The number of children who drown
each year is large. Addressing a preventable cause of death that is responsible for as many as one out of
every four deaths in childhood after infancy is a moral and ethical imperative.
The international community has long recognized the toll on socioeconomic development from
childhood diseases such as malaria and diarrhoeal diseases, hence the priority given to reducing
mortality and morbidity. The same applies to societal loss from drowning and the same response is
needed.
Drowning deaths are responsible for an increasingly large proportion of early child mortality and will
present a significant barrier to achievement of MDG4 in those countries struggling to reach the goal.
Drowning reduction should be a component of early child mortality reduction in all countries, simply
based on numbers, but especially so in those countries struggling to achieve MDG4. Achieving the goal
will add momentum to the effort to further reduce child mortality in the period beyond 2015.
4.2 IF DROWNING IS NOT COUNTED, IT DOES NOT COUNT
To become a part of the child survival revolution, child drowning must be counted. The process starts
with awareness of the issue itself which is currently lacking. There are significant gaps:
The UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation Report (2010) does not mention
drowning as a cause of death in children. 70
There are now 156 different indicators for UNICEF’s The State of the World’s Children report.
However, mortality from drowning (or other types of injury) is not included. 71 Similarly, over the
past 30 years the report has lacked any mention of drowning as a cause of child death. 72
The Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) is used to measure key child health and
development parameters and to track progress on a wide variety of child goals. 73 MICS-4 (2009-
70 United Nations Children’s Fund, Levels and Trends in Child Mortality, Report 2010, Estimates Developed by the UN Inter-
Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation. New York: UNICEF.
71 United Nations Children’s Fund (2010), The State of the World’s Children 2011. New York: UNICEF.
72 A word search for the terms ‘drowning’, ‘drownings’ and ‘drown’ on word-searchable PDF copies of SOWC from 1980 through
2012 found only one use of the term ‘drowning’, in SOWC 2011 and it applied as a metaphor to a nation as a country that was
drowning (see quote page 47).
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