The Kansas Attorney General’s Office has released a report from a state review board that said child deaths fell to a record low in 2021, despite an increase in the number of child homicides and fentanyl overdoses.
The report is from the State Child Death Review Board of Kansas. It looked at the deaths of children from birth through 17 years of age during calendar year 2021, the most recent year for which data is available.
The report listed 349 child fatalities in 2021, compared with 365 in 2020. The overall child death rate was 49.6 deaths per 100,000 population, the lowest number and rate of death since the review board was created in 1994.
The report said child deaths from natural causes declined over the past five years, but there has been an alarming increase in the number of deaths due to homicides, weapon-related causes, and drug-related causes. There were 32 children who died from homicide in 2021, up from 22 in 2020. There were 20 deaths from fentanyl overdoses in 2020 and 2021, with no deaths in the previous three years.
