Study: Economic burden of youth violence reached $122 billion in 2020
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- The economic burden of youth violence increased from $105 billion in 2015 to $122 billion to 2020.
- Costs in 2020 were dominated by male firearm homicides.
The economic burden of youth violence in the United States reached $122 billion in 2020, according to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics.
“Violence inflicts an enormous toll of morbidity and mortality among U.S. youth,” Cora Peterson, PhD, a senior health economist at the CDC’s Division of Injury Prevention, told Healio. “It is important to measure the societal cost of that violence, which includes not just medical spending, but also lost work productivity among affected youth and their caregivers, reduced physical and emotional quality of life from assault injuries, and the very high cost of lost life years when young people die from violence.”
Using a CDC reporting system, Peterson and colleagues assessed data on homicides and ED visits for nonfatal assault injuries among youths aged 10 to 24 years and the economic cost of medical care spending, lost work productivity, reduced quality of life from injury morbidity and avoidable mortality from 2015 to 2020.
Ultimately, the researchers found that the annual economic burden of U.S. youth violence was between $105 billion and $115 billion from 2015 to 2019, with a 20% decline over that time in ED visits for nonfatal assault injuries, and an associated decrease from $50 billion to $42 billion in nonfatal economic burden.
In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual economic burden of youth violence jumped to $122 billion in 2020 — 17% higher than the year before — and was “dominated by male firearm homicides,” Peterson said, at an average of 86% during the study period.
The rate of youth homicides caused by firearm injuries jumped from 87% in 2015 to 92% in 2020, and avoidable mortality was the costliest economic burden element at an average $13 million annual per homicide.
“The economic burden merits further investigation because youth violence disproportionately affects high-poverty communities,” the authors wrote. “Highlighting the economic burden of youth violence is essential to inform decision-making about the value of targeted prevention strategies.”
“Prevention strategies can reduce the substantial burden of youth violence,” Peterson said. “The CDC has developed a resource for action to help states and communities take advantage of the best available evidence to prevent youth violence, [called the] Youth Violence Prevention Resource for Action.”
Such research will be important for “quantifying the economic burden of violence-related mortality and morbidity can support decisions about investment in prevention strategies,” Peterson added.
Collapse
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts