Drowning: Prevention needed to save lives

What is drowning?

Drowning is the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion/immersion in liquid with outcomes that are classified as death, morbidity, and no morbidity.

What is the problem statement?

• Worldwide, drowning is the 3rd leading cause of unintentional injury death (7% of all injury-related deaths)
• Around 320 000 drowning deaths occur annually.
• Children, males, and individuals with increased access to water are at high risk of drowning.
• > 90% of drowning deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
• China & India together contribute 43% of the total drowning deaths in the world.

What are the risk factors?

• Age: Highest drowning rates are among children 1–4 years, followed by children 5–9 years. Drowning is one of the top 5 causes of death for people aged 1–14 years for 48 of 85 countries with data meeting inclusion criteria.
• Gender: Males are at risk of drowning, with twice the overall mortality rate of females due to increased exposure to water and riskier behavior such as swimming alone, drinking alcohol before swimming alone and boating.
• Access to water: Individuals with occupations such as commercial fishing or fishing for subsistence, using small boats and children who live near open water sources, such as ditches, ponds, irrigation channels, or pools are especially at risk.
• Flood disasters: Risk of drowning increases with floods particularly in low- and middle-income countries where people live in flood-prone areas and the ability to warn, evacuate, or protect communities from floods is weak or only just developing.
• Traveling on water: Journeys on overcrowded, unsafe vessels lacking safety equipment or are operated by personnel untrained in dealing with transport incidents or navigation or under the influence of alcohol or drugs are also a risk.
• Other risk factors: Infants left unsupervised or alone with another child around water, alcohol use near or in the water, medical conditions such as epilepsy & tourists unfamiliar with local water risks and features.

How to prevent drowning?

We can prevent drowning by the following methods:

• Installing barriers (e.g. covering wells, using doorway barriers and playpens, fencing swimming pools, etc.) to control access to water hazards, or removing water hazards entirely greatly reduces water hazard exposure and risk.
• Supervised child care for pre-school children.
• Teaching school-age children basic swimming, water safety, and safe rescue skills.
• Setting and enforcing safe boating, shipping, and ferry regulations.
• Building resilience to flooding and managing flood risks through better disaster preparedness planning, land use planning, and early warning systems.
• Developing a national water safety strategy to raise awareness of safety around water, build consensus around solutions, provide strategic direction, and a framework to guide multisectoral action and allow for monitoring and evaluation of efforts.
• Creating and maintaining safe water zones for recreation.
• Covering of wells or open cisterns.
• Emptying buckets & baths, and storing them upside down.

 Reference:

1. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drowning
2. https://www.who.int/health-topics/drowning#tab=tab_1
3. file:///C:/Users/Dr%20PREETI%20USHA/Downloads/9789241511933-eng%20(1).pdf photo credit
4. file:///C:/Users/Dr%20PREETI%20USHA/Downloads/9789241564786_eng.pdf photo credit
5. https://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/global_report_drowning/WHO_Infographic_A4_1PAGE_ToWeb_REV1.pdf photo credit