Water Safety Strategy

Section 01

Count and crude rate of all unintentional drowning incidents (fatal & non-fatal) by age group, 2016-2021 (Data source: CDPH EpiCenter)4 21* (Data source: CDPH EpiCenter)(4)

Unintentional fatal drowning counts and crude death rates per 100,000 California residents by age group, 2016 - 2021 (Data source: CDPH EpiCenter) (4)

Understanding what is counted - The full burden of drowning

The traditional approach used to count and report on drowning typically focuses on deaths only (not non-fatal events), and excludes drowning deaths due to boating and other water-transport, disaster events (e.g., floods), intentional drowning (e.g., suicide, homicide), drowning of undetermined intent, and deaths where drowning is listed as a contributing cause (i.e. not the primary cause of death). A preliminary analysis of fatal drowning based on 2005-2019 data from the California Comprehensive Master Death File found that the traditional approach severely underrepresented the number of drowning deaths, capturing only 67.5% of all drowning cases. (5) When taking all fatal drowning cases into account, more than 600 drowning deaths occur per year in California.

A restricted view of the problem limits understanding of the issue and influences which populations and places are prioritized for intervention. Additionally, it creates artificial boundaries and silos within the issue, which may impact prevention. Broader criteria of which fatal and non-fatal cases are counted and included in analysis and reports is imperative to characterizing the full burden of drowning in California, and an important component of Priority 2 .