Youth Indicators 1996 / Indicator 50, Chart 1
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Vital Statistics of the United States, Volume II-Mortality, Part A, various years and Monthly Vital Statistics vol. 43, no. 6, Supplement, 1995 (corrected).
The death rates of young adults 15 to 24 years old generally declined between 1970 and 1985 and have fluctuated since then. Young men have died each year at nearly triple the rate of young women since the late 1980s. Also, between 1950 and 1993, the decline in the death rate for women was much larger than that for men. There has been a recent surge in death rates for 15- to 24-year-old black males-from 174 per 100,000 in 1985 to 283 in 1993. Death rates are higher for blacks than for whites, especially among men.