Parental deaths from guns or drugs harmed nearly 100,000 US children in 2020: study

Nearly 100,000 American children lost a parent to gun violence or drug overdose in 2020, a threefold increase since 1999, a new study shows.

Overall, these two causes made up nearly a quarter (23%) of parental losses in 2020, nearly double the level cited in 1999, according to a team that reported its findings May 4 in the journal. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

“American youth are at high and increasing risk of parental death from drugs or firearms,” concluded a team led by Mathew Kiang of the Stanford University School of Medicine.

In the study, Kiang’s team noted that “the US faces dual overlapping public health crises of drug poisoning… and gun deaths. Since 1999, more than 1 million U.S. residents have died from fatal drug poisonings and more than 750,000 from firearms. .”

How much does all this affect the country’s children?

To find out, the researchers scoured federal mortality statistics, fertility data and population demographics to estimate how many parents have died from drugs or gun violence in recent years.

Many of these parents died young: the study found that the average age at which a parent suffered a fatal drug overdose or gun injury was just 42 years old. Fathers were three times more likely to die from these causes than mothers.

Drug overdose deaths are rising especially rapidly among people between the ages of 30 and 40, the researchers noted. About 72,800 children lost a parent to a drug overdose in 2020, more than four times the 16,000 children affected by such a tragedy in 1999.

Parental deaths from gun violence also rose 39% during that period, Kiang’s team reported. That is considerably higher than the 24% increase in the number of children who lost a mother or father to other causes during that period.

Black children were three times as likely to lose a parent to drugs or gun violence than children as a whole.

All this means serious mental damage for more and more American children who are grieving these losses, says Robin Gurwitch, a psychologist and professor at Duke University School of Medicine.

The shame surrounding a parent dying from drugs or gun violence is part of the problem, she told CNN.

“If it can’t be talked about openly and freely, it makes it harder for children to get the support they need,” said Gurwitch, who was not involved in the new research.

“For children who hold these things in, the risk of it trickling down to everything from serious behavioral problems to grief disorders to other forms of mental health problems – anxiety, depression or their own substance abuse – is much greater.”

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