Study Looks at Black/White Injury-Related Mortality Rates

"Reducing Black/White Disparity: Changes in Injury Mortality in the 15-24 Year Age Group, United States, 1999-2005," Injury Prevention: For the report, researchers Guoqing Hu, a postdoctoral fellow in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Medicine's Department of Health Policy and Management and Susan Baker of Bloomberg School's Center for Injury Research and Policy, used a Web-based injury statistics query and reporting system, as well as mortality data from several agencies, to examine injury mortality rates among U.S. residents ages 15 to 24. Between 1999 and 2005, injury mortality rates for black males declined steadily, but rates for white males increased by 7%, according to the study. When compared with rates in 1999, the racial gap in injury-related mortality rates decreased by 24%, the study found. Researchers found that while the injury mortality rate among whites did not have any significant changes, blacks had an 11% decrease. Researchers attributed the reduction to a decline in motor vehicle crashes and firearm suicides among black males and an increase in suicide by suffocation -- typically hanging -- and unintentional poisoning, such as a drug overdose, among white males. Among women, blacks had a decrease in the rate of firearm suicide and whites had an increase in unintentional poisoning and suicide by suffocation (Johns Hopkins release, 6/16).