Violence Against Youth

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1. Describe your reaction to seeing the types of injuries that are the leading causes of death among youth. 2. State your position about which you think is a greater threat to young people in our society: intentional injuries or unintentional injuries. Please explain your answer and support your response with evidence from the background readings and other research. Introduction The following paper will be discussing the CDC's Injury Prevention & Control: Data & Statistics chart. I will discuss my reaction to seeing the types of injuries that are the leading causes of death among youth. Finally I will state my position about what I think is a greater threat to young people in our society: intentional injuries or unintentional injuries. Leading Cause of Death When looking at the leading cause of death chart from the CDC's Injury Prevention & Control: Data & Statistics website my reaction to the data ranged unsurprised to shocked. I was unsurprised that a common cause of death among 1-14 year olds was drowning, suffocation, and motor vehicle accidents. What was shocking was how common homicide was as a cause of death. In particular specified and unspecified homicide was the number 2 and 3 leading cause of death for children less than 1 year old. It was also interesting that suicide breached the top 5 at the 15-19 year old range. But what was most alarming was the progressive rate of homicide and suicide as cause of death from ages 15 and up. Two recent internet article supports these CDC findings with the following. In 2010, there were 10,887 deaths among adolescents aged 15–19 years, representing a rate of 49.4 per 100,000.1 The rate of adolescent mortality declined by 7.7 percent from the previous year and 26.4 percent from 2000. This decline may be largely attributable to decreases in unintentional injury which remains the leading cause
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