Suicide STILL not the leading cause of death in Arizona's children
Anyone claiming otherwise is selling a social policy or wants a job
Arizona’s 2023 Annual Report on child fatalities is out - and, yet again, suicide is not the leading cause of death in children contrary to the morbid claims of those who insist, without evidence, otherwise. My comments on the 2022 report here.
Highlights:
46 suicides (vs 44 in prior year)
5% of all child deaths (unchanged)
Natural causes / motor vehicles comprise 87% of all deaths (unchanged)
Substance use involved in 1 out of every 5 deaths (unchanged)
Neglect/Abuse involved with 17% of all deaths (+2% from prior year)
Full report available here.
Here are the numbers from the prior year. You can read my take on those numbers in this Substack article here.
Looking at these figures, you’d think more emphasis would be placed on substance use, prenatal / postpartum care and parenting. Deaths from abuse and neglect usually running ~3X the number of suicides.
That means, literally, parents are killing three times more children in Arizona than are lost to suicide.
But no one wants to talk about parenting. That gets to culture, and maybe other taboo subjects…which leads to the “disproportionately affected” talk:
So we get organizations like this lying about the “leading cause” to push some other preferred agenda:
Followed by a demand for money for non-profits (they and their friends sit on), mental health workers in schools, and new laws to give them all another feel-good gig.
The more you know.
End.