Unintentional drowning is among the leading causes of death, premature mortality, and a major contributor to disability in children, adolescents, and youth in the Region of the Americas. Indeed, deaths and premature mortality due to unintentional drowning are preventable.
This data visualization presents estimates of the burden of drowning by age, sex, and country in the Region of the Americas from 2000 to 2019.
In the Region of the Americas in 2021, unintentional drowning accounted for:
Age-standardized death rates due to unintentional drowning vary across countries from 9.9 deaths/100,000 population in Guyana to 0.4 deaths/100,000 population in Antigua and Barbuda.
Countries with the highest level of unintentional drowning mortality are:
Recommended citation:
The burden of unintentional drowning in the Region of the Americas, 2000-2021. ENLACE Data Portal. Pan American Health Organization. 2025
DATA CLASSIFICATION
In the map and bar chart, data are presented in five discrete classes created using the quantile classification method. Each quintile class contains 20% of countries, which is easy to interpret. The quintile classes are labeled sequentially from Quintile 1 as the first quintile including the lowest fifth (0 to 20%) of the data to Quintile 5, the fifth quintile representing the class with the highest fifth (80% to 100%) of the data.
MEASURES
Measure names: Deaths, Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), Years Lived with Disability (YLDs), and Years of Life Lost (YLLs) due to diabetes mellitus
Metric: Rate
Unit of Measure: deaths, DALY, YLD, and YLL per 100,000 population
Topic: Mortality and burden of disease
Rationale: Measuring how many people die each year and why they died is one of the most important means – along with gauging how diseases and injuries are affecting people's health – for assessing the effectiveness of a country’s health system. Statistics of causes of death help health authorities evaluate and focalize public health actions.
Disaggregation: Age, Sex, Country, and Year
Method of estimation: Mortality and burden of disease estimates by cause, age, sex, location (countries, and the region), and year were extracted from the WHO Global Health Estimates (GHE) 2000-2019. These estimates represent WHO's best estimates, computed using standard categories, definitions, and methods to ensure cross-country comparability, and may not be the same as official national estimates.
Methodological details:
Data sources and methods for estimating causes of deaths and burden of diseases are described in the following documents. The cause list and corresponding IDC-10 codes are also included in these documents:
Method of estimation of global and regional aggregates: Global, regional and subregional aggregates were computed by summing the absolute number of the measure (deaths, DALYs, YLDs, YLL) as the numerator and summing the population estimates from the World Population Prospect, produced by the UN Population Division, as denominators for all countries included in the geographic region or subregion. Rates were computed by dividing the aggregated numerator and aggregated population and multiplying the result y 100,000 population. Age-standardized rates were computed by the direct method using the World Standard Population.
Preferred data sources: Civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) system with complete coverage and medical certification of cause of death.