Fatal injuries are increasing at an “alarming” rate in the U.S., according to a new study by researchers in Colorado, as incidents such as suicide, homicide and car accidents continue to be one of the leading causes of death.
The number of fatal injuries — both violent and unintentional — jumped 7.4 percent between 2014 and 2016, according to the study by the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Denver Health Medical Center.
The study, which was published in the JAMA Surgery medical journal this week, was conducted because local trauma surgeons sensed they have been treating more violent incidents in recent years.
“The data, unfortunately, affirmed our impressions, which was alarming,” said Dr. Ernest Moore, a trauma surgeon at Denver Health and co-author of the study.
The study looked at a period ranging from 2000 to 2016, but researchers found that starting in 2014, injuries have increased at a faster rate.
For example, fatal, unintentional injuries rose by 8.6 percent between 2014 and 2016. Homicides jumped 9.4 percent during the two-year period and fatal car accidents increased 6.3 percent.
“What is disturbing is that they all went up,” said Dr. Angela Sauaia, a professor of public health and surgery at the University of Colorado Denver.
Suicide rates across the nation have also been increasing, and the recent study found that about half of such deaths involved a firearm. Starting in 2013, white Latinos experienced a larger increase in suicides than other demographics, according to the study.
In 2016, roughly 1,168 Coloradans died by suicide, making it the seventh leading cause of death in the state, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study also found that about two-thirds of homicides in the U.S. were firearm-related.
“Gun violence is a larger part of this,” Moore said.
In 2016, the firearm death rate in the U.S. was 11.8 per 100,000. In Colorado, there were 812 firearm-related deaths, giving the state a higher rate (14.3) of firearm deaths than the nation as a whole, according to the CDC.
Researchers are unsure of what is driving the increase in fatal injuries, but speculate that social media and civil unrest in 2014 could have led to more violent incidents and car accidents.
The researchers said they will need to do more research to determine the exact cause of the increase in injuries, but it’s difficult to find funding for such studies.
“We don’t have the funding to do the research at a national level,” Moore said.
