The State of Our Health - Men's Health: Accidents

In 2000, 93,592 people died of unintentional injuries suffered in accidents of all kinds. Of these, just shy of 45% were motor vehicle fatalities — 41,804 deaths. The rest were due to other events. Accidents are most common from falls (17%), accidental poisoning from drugs or medicines (10%), drownings (4.2%), inhalation or ingestion of objects (3.7%), and fires (3.5%).

Those aged 75 to 84 have a 2.8 times higher accidental death rate than all ages combined. Those aged 85 or older have a 7.6 times higher death rate. Men's death rates in 1998 were 46.5 deaths per 100,000 population, women's 23.8, so men are nearly twice as likely to die of accidents than women — hence accidents are highlighted here as a men's health issue.

The graphic shows the general pattern for groupings of men from 1979 to 1998 and for women of all races (dotted line). Accidental death rates are down for all groups, most noticeably for women: fewer women die in automobile accidents. And auto accidents are down significantly, probably because males aged 15 to 24 have become a lower percentage of the total population. This group of males has a higher death rate from motor vehicle accidents than any age group except those 85 years old or older. The graphic on the following page shows accidental death rate trends and the percentage of this age group of the population.

Note the similarity of the curves on this logarithmic chart — which preserves the change between the two sets of data despite difference in scale.

The decline in accidental death rates, however, is not explained simply by a decrease in an especially "accident-prone" age cohort as a percentage of the population. While males aged 15 to 24 declined in the 1980 to 1998 period by 8% overall, males aged 75 and older increased by nearly 65%. Death rates in both groups dropped. Improvements appear to be due to many factors working together. As shown elsewhere in this series, occupational fatalities are down in part as a consequence of vigorously enforced safety programs — which were, in part, instituted to avoid expensive litigation. Accidental fatalities are down for motor vehicles, railroads, airlines (except for a sharp uptick in 1995), recreational boating, and water-borne transportation. In general, accidents and accidental fatalities have diminished during the past two decades.

In this series, as in others, we note that the experience of African Americans is worse than that of whites. In 1998, blacks had a 12.5% higher accidental death rate than whites, a slight spreading in the gap between the groups: in 1979, blacks had an 11.5% higher death rate in this category. Both races, however, have seen an overall decline in the death rate.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Health Statistics. National Vital Statistics System. Online. Available: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/default.htm. May 29, 2002.