Child deaths decline in county but drownings draw attention in report

Fewer children died in Clark County last year than in 2008, but increases in drownings and prescription drug overdoses show more needs to be done to prevent such deaths, according to new report from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The report from the Nevada Institute for Children's Research and Policy released Monday noted 283 children died in the county in 2009, down 9 percent. Most of the deaths, 185, were from natural causes.

Fifty-seven died in accidents, 17 in homicides, four from suicide and 18 from undetermined causes.

The leading accidental cause of death was traffic crashes with 16. But it was the 11 drownings that caught the researchers' attention.

Tara Phebus, a research analyst, said most of the drownings occurred in older areas of the county where fencing and other pool barriers are not required.

The report's authors called for new regulations to require older homes meet current standards, which require barriers such as fences or door alarms.

"We need to make sure we have barriers on all of our pools," Phebus said.

Mike Bernstein, a health educator with the Southern Nevada Health District, said public education campaigns during the past 15 years have cut the drowning rate in half, but they go only so far.

Barriers around pools give parents and caregivers valuable time to prevent a toddler from falling in the water, he said.

"It's just that momentary lapse in supervision that's the difference between life and death," Bernstein said.

Public health officials supported a bill during the 2009 legislative session that would require older homes to be upgraded to current codes when sold, but the bill failed under heavy opposition from real estate groups.

Sean Fellows, government affairs director for the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, said the group's biggest concern was forcing home buyers to spend thousands of dollars on barriers when they might not even have children at their homes.

The extra cost would also be prohibitive for homeowners whose houses are worth far less than their mortgages, he said.

As a compromise, the realtor groups agreed to add a section on pool safety in the Real Estate Disclosure Guide given to home buyers in October 2009, he said.

The child fatality report also flagged a "sweeping increase" in prescription drug overdoses, Phebus said.

That number climbed from four in 2007, to 12 in 2008, to 16 last year. Seventy percent of the deaths were among 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds, she said.

The rise in recreational use of prescription painkillers coincides with a nationwide trend, she said.

The researchers recommended more public education campaigns on the dangers of recreational use of prescription drugs as well as more effort to control how prescriptions are delivered.

Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0281.