Report: Guns were leading cause of death among American youth in 2020

Gun violence overtook car accidents as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the US in 2020, according to a report from the University of Michigan.

The finding was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as part of longer-term research effort from the university’s Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention (IFIP).

An analysis of mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed a nearly 30% increase in gun-related deaths among Americans up to age 19 between 2019 and 2020, the researchers said. These deaths include incidents of suicide, accidental shootings and homicides, with homicides outpacing the other two categories.

The number of deaths from car accidents and gun homicides among infants, children and young adults has been growing since 2016. Drug overdoses and poisoning increased by more than 80% between 2019 and 2020, the researchers found, to become the third leading cause of death among this demographic.

“We knew gun violence had increased but I was surprised by the level of increase for just one year,” said Dr. Jason Goldstick, a researcher with IFIP and associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Michigan. “I can’t remember ever seeing that before.”

The rise in shooting deaths among the nation’s youngest is part of a larger increase in homicides in that same time period. Gun homicides across the US rose 33% in 2020, according to the study. This increase was felt by black Americans, who despite making up 14% of the US population accounted for nearly half of the nation’s homicide victims, according to FBI data released in the fall of 2021.

Although 2020 marked the first year that more children and teens were killed by guns than in car accidents, gun violence has been the number one cause of death among black teenage boys over 15 for at least a decade, according to CDC data.

Previous analysis showed that through 2016, firearm-related injuries were second only to motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents. However, since 2016 that gap has narrowed, and within four years firearm-related injuries surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death in that age group.