Editorial

Study finds tragic link between income, chance of drowning

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

It's a hot early August day. Seven teenagers at a family get-together at a park are splashing around a nearby river when one of them steps over a dropoff into 20 to 30 feet of water.

He can't swim. Neither can the other six in the river. Nor could any of the adults on the shore, who watched helplessly as six of the teens drowned trying to rescue the first teen. Ironically, he was rescued by a bystander.

Tragically, the teens may have been as much a victim of their economic condition as of drowning. All from inner-city Shreveport, Louisiana, they were all too typical of lower-income America.

According to a 2008 survey by the USA Swimming Foundation, the youth drowning rate is 2-3 times higher in ethnically-diverse communities as the national average. Nearly six out of 10 African American and Hispanic/Latino children are unable to swim, nearly twice as many as their Caucasian counterparts.

The University of Memphis found that 67 percent of poor swimmers have a household income less than $49,999. Only 29 percent of skilled swimmers fall below that income level.

Twelve percent of children who participate in a reduced-cost school lunch program said they don't even feel comfortable in the shallow end of a pool, compared with just 6 percent of wealthier children.

But money isn't the only difference.

According to the foundation study, children from non-swimming households are eight times more likely to be at-risk of drowning. While about a third of white children from non-swimming families go on to learn to swim, less than 1/10th of children in non-swimming African American families do.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 3,442 fatal, unintentional drownings in the United States in 2007, or 10 deaths per day. More than one in five fatal drowning victims are children 14 and younger, and for every child that drowns, another four received emergency care for nonfatal submersion injuries. Those can be severe, however, including brain damage that causes long-term disabilities such as memory problems, learning disabilities and permanent loss of basic functions.

Fortunately for McCook area residents, all children of whatever social strata have a chance to learn to swim at the YMCA, which was busy with a full range of swim lessons earlier this summer and offers training for children starting at a very early age.

Let's hope everyone makes sure the children in their lives have every opportunity to learn to swim.

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