Swimming isn’t simply good exercise or fun with family and friends; it can be the one thing that saves a child’s life.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that ten people die every day in the U.S. from unintentional drowning, including 1 in 5 children 14 or younger. Drowning is the second most common cause of unintentional injury death for children and the fifth most common cause of unintentional injury death for people of all ages. For every child who drowns and dies, five others go to the emergency room with submersion injuries that do not result in death.

But drowning isn’t limited to small children or deaths in the bathtub. Teenagers may be too sure of their swimming skills and are more likely to swim while drunk, which greatly increases their risk. Children of color, especially African American teens, are especially at risk.

Black kids between the ages of 5 and 14 are 2.6 times more likely to die than white kids of the same age. This is because black families have not had much experience with public pools and other water activities over the years because they have been shut out of them.

Overall, the number of drowning deaths has gone down, but there are still differences between racial and ethnic groups. To help close these gaps, community-based interventions could be used to teach disproportionately affected racial and ethnic groups basic swimming and water safety skills. From 2005 to 2019, the difference in the number of non-Hispanic Black and White people who drowned grew. From 1999 to 2019, 81,947 people died in the United States by drowning accidentally.

While overall drowning death rates have gone down, there are still differences between racial and ethnic groups. Implementing and evaluating community-based interventions, such as those that teach racial and ethnic groups fundamental swimming and water safety skills, could help to reduce these differences.

The difference in the number of drown- ings of black and white males in Florida went down from 1970 to 1990. By 2005, the overall age-adjusted drowning rate had leveled off. This was most noticeable for people ages 10 to 34 and 35 to 64. Even though the gap has gone down quite a bit, there is still a racial difference in...