Citation

Okoye CN, Okoye MI. J. Forensic Leg. Med. 2011; 18(8): 366-374.

Affiliation

Nebraska Institute of Forensic Sciences, Inc., 6940 Van Dorn Street, Suite 105, Lincoln, NE 68516, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jflm.2011.07.013

PMID

22018169

Abstract

In a 7-year period (April 1, 2003-March 31, 2010), all medico-legal childhood deaths aged 0-18 years investigated by the Lancaster County Coroner's Office under the auspices of Nebraska Institute of Forensic Sciences, Inc. (NIFS), were retrospectively reviewed (n = 140). This number of cases represents 10.9% of the 1287 forensic autopsies performed during the same period. Age, race, gender, cause and manner of deaths were analyzed for all victims categorized into five age groups: 0-1 year, 1-4 years, 5-9 years, 10-14 years, and 15-18 years. Male victims predominated with 98 cases (70%) versus 42 cases (30%) for females giving a male to female ratio of 2.3: 1. The mean age of the children was 7.6 years. The racial composition was 86.4% white, 10.7% Hispanic, 0.7% American Indian, 1.4% African American, and 0.7% Asian American. The majority of deaths occurred in the 0-1 age group (50 cases), followed in rank order by the 15-18 age group (40 cases), the 1-4 age group (23 cases), the 10-14 age group (17 cases), and the 5-9 age group (10 cases). The most common manner of death was accident, followed by natural, suicide, homicide, and undetermined. Accidents accounted for 71 cases (50.7%) of all the deaths and are amenable to prevention. Accidental blunt force trauma accounted for 41 cases or 58% of all the accident cases. The share of motor vehicle crashes in total blunt force trauma deaths was 33 cases. Natural deaths comprised 42 cases or 30% of all the deaths. Suicide (19 cases or 13.6% of all the deaths) was only encountered in the older age groups, the 10-14 age group (6 cases) and the 15-18 age group (13 cases). However, homicide which was observed as the least common manner of death (7 cases) was more predominant among the younger age groups (0-1 and 1-4 age groups). This review may provide useful information for the forensic pathologist, death investigators, law enforcement officers, policy makers, healthcare providers and Nebraska Child Death Review Team in predicting, preventing and investigating childhood medico-legal deaths.

Language: en