Drowning Data

Key points

  • More children ages 1-4 die from drowning than any other cause of death.
  • Drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death for children ages 5-14.
  • Every year in the United States there are over 4,000A unintentional drowning deaths.
Infant in life jacket with sibling in life jacket in background, together with supervising adult in swimming pool.

Drowning Trends

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A chart of drowning fatal injury data, showing various years of both provisional and final data.
Provisional drowning data available via WISQARS

This chart shows the number of drowning deaths by month and year, including the most recent provisional data available. You can access the full interactive chart by clicking on the link below.

View drowning trends

Drowning Deaths by State

  • Every year in the United States there are over 4,000A unintentional drowning deaths.1
  • Drowning death rates vary from state to state.
  • The annual age-adjusted drowning death rate in the United States during 2018-2021 was 1.31 deaths per 100,000 people.
  • The map below shows annual age-adjusted unintentional drowning death rates during 2018-2021.

Learn more about drowning deaths in your state.

Data source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) [Online]. Available at https://wonder.cdc.gov. Accessed 31 May 2023.

Note: For the District of Columbia, the number of drowning deaths in 2018-2021 is too small to calculate a reliable drowning death rate.

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Content Source:
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control
  1. An average of 4,345 unintentional drowning deaths occurred each year from 2018–2021
  1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) [Online]. Available at https://wisqars.cdc.gov/.