Here’s a racial disparity that hurts the youngest the most: Minority children are more likely to die from drowning, suffocation, and poisoning than white children.
 
Blacks, American Indians, Alaskan Natives, and Asian/Pacific Islanders are all affected. The differences are not insignificant. One example: More than three times as many African-American children ages 5 to 14 drown as white children in the same age range.
 
Drowning isn’t the only killer. In a study published in the April 2007 issue of Pediatrics, researchers found that although unintentional poisonings had dropped in all ethnic and racial groups, black children still died from unintentional poisoning at a rate more than two and a half times higher than white children.
 
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), which was passed in 2008 to overhaul the product-safety system, required the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study why minority children seem to be more at risk for injury and death from product-related incidents than white children, and to find ways to reduce that risk. 
 
The GAO issued its report recently. One finding: Gaps in information collected in hospitals and listed on death certificates make it harder for the government to track how and why kids are being killed. The report calls for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to do a better job of collecting information about accidental deaths. The GAO also suggested that the CPSC find more effective ways of getting its safety messages out to the communities most at risk.
 
This week, the CPSC responded to the new information and recommendations. In a report submitted to Congress the agency said that information collected on race will be expanded to include more categories, and that it’s working with hospitals to ensure that the vital information they collect on race is consistent.  The CPSC will also be working with community groups to better target safety messages to at-risk community members, translating information into Spanish and raising awareness through minority media outlets.
 
Consumers Union is concerned about protecting the smallest among us who cannot protect themselves. The evidence indicating increased risks of harm and death for minority children is disturbing and we’ll be following the issue and sharing any updates.