The burden of unintentional drowning: global, regional and national estimates of mortality from the Global Burden of Disease 2017 Study

Abstract

BackgroundDrowning is a leading cause of injury-related mortality globally. Unintentional drowning (International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 10 codes W65-74 and ICD9 E910) is one of the 30 mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive causes of injury-related mortality in the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. This study’s objective is to describe unintentional drowning using GBD estimates from 1990 to 2017.MethodsUnintentional drowning from GBD 2017 was estimated for cause-specific mortality and years of life lost (YLLs), age, sex, country, region, Socio-demographic Index (SDI) quintile, and trends from 1990 to 2017. GBD 2017 used standard GBD methods for estimating mortality from drowning.ResultsGlobally, unintentional drowning mortality decreased by 44.5% between 1990 and 2017, from 531 956 (uncertainty interval (UI): 484 107 to 572 854) to 295 210 (284 493 to 306 187) deaths. Global age-standardised mortality rates decreased 57.4%, from 9.3 (8.5 to 10.0) in 1990 to 4.0 (3.8 to 4.1) per 100 000 per annum in 2017. Unintentional drowning-associated mortality was generally higher in children, males and in low-SDI to middle-SDI countries. China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh accounted for 51.2% of all drowning deaths in 2017. Oceania was the region with the highest rate of age-standardised YLLs in 2017, with 45 434 (40 850 to 50 539) YLLs per 100 000 across both sexes.ConclusionsThere has been a decline in global drowning rates. This study shows that the decline was not consistent across countries. The results reinforce the need for continued and improved policy, prevention and research efforts, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries.

Next steps for drowning prevention in rural and remote Australia: A systematic review of the literature

“…Effective low-cost and low-resource options for drowning prevention among rural Australia can also be suitable for application to developing nations around the world who account for a significant proportion of the global drowning burden. 53 The strengths of this study included the deliberately broad search strategy and inclusion of both grey and peer-reviewed literature. A limitation of this review is that included studies were not differentiated with respect to the rurality of residence or the rurality of the drowning incident location.…”

Aquatic Competencies and Drowning Prevention in Children 2–4 Years: A Systematic Review

“…Globally, drowning is the leading cause of unintentional injury death among children [1,2] and, across the life span, claimed 295,000 lives in 2017 [3]. Drowning is among the ten leading causes of death in children in countries of all geographic and demographic compositions [4][5][6], with children 0-4 years disproportionately at risk both in terms of unintentional drowning deaths and hospitalized non-fatal drownings [2,3].…”

“…Statistically significant improvement;2 No improvement not statistically significant/no change;3 Improvement but not statistically significant; Y/N = Yes/No.…”

Is Low-Frequency Electrical Stimulation a Tool for Recovery after a Water Rescue? A Cross-Over Study with Lifeguards

“…Lifeguards require a high level of physical conditioning to respond to the physiological demands of a water rescue [1]. Drowning is a global health problem, which in 2017 caused 295,210 drowning deaths [2], a number that would be much higher without lifeguard prevention and rescues. Drowning is triggered, within seconds or minutes [3], so the intensity of lifeguards' water rescues is very high, with lactate production of over 10 millimoles [4,5] and great physiological and muscular fatigue [6].…”