The community of Lompoc is advancing a set of initiatives to provide new and motivating opportunities for its young people so they can navigate and thrive in the world beyond high school. This focus is critical given sobering national trends that reveal increasing death rates and other deteriorating outcomes among children in the U.S.
National trends paint a disheartening picture revealing a rise in child deaths — due to various causes — leading to a shocking decline in the overall life expectancy of our nation.
The national statistics are sobering: suicide rates for children under 17 surged by 84 percent between 2007 and 2018. Homicides committed against children started increasing in 2013 — driven by gun violence, which became the leading cause of death among U.S. children in 2020. Drug-related deaths had remained relatively stable for young people until just before the pandemic, when it rose by 94 percent between 2019 and 2020, followed by another 20 percent increase in 2021. And child traffic fatalities, which had been on a decades-long decline, began rising in 2019.