Injury deaths in NYC

Young and middle-aged adults (ages 15 to 44) do not typically die from the natural causes that kill older adults. Injuries, both intentional — violence or suicide — and unintentional, dominate as causes of death. These premature deaths are tragic, unnecessary and preventable.
Below we focus on homicide and suicide, reflecting areas of focus in the NYC Health Department’s recently released HealthyNYC, which identifies the major drivers of decreasing life expectancy and health equity in our city and identifies strategies to reduce each driver’s impact.
Suicide and homicide do not just affect the immediate victims. The impacts radiate, potentially widening disparities and causing stress, trauma and other negative health effects for victims’ friends, neighbors, colleagues and family members. In communities where New Yorkers are more likely to experience either homicide or suicide, violence is both a personal and public health concern. Below we focus on homicide and suicide.
For each subgroup within young and middle-aged New Yorkers — ages 15 to 24, 25 to 34, and 35 to 44 — the homicide and suicide patterns look slightly different.
Ages 15 to 24: Homicides and suicides are the second- and third-leading causes of death.
From 2017 to 2019, Black New Yorkers between the ages of 15 to 24 died by homicide at a higher rate than people of other racial and ethnic groups of the same age. White and Asian people this age had a homicide rate of close to zero.
Racial disparities signal historical and structural origins that have and continue to deny resources to people of color. These include things like social structures that limit access to basic needs (such as health care) which are perpetuated by racism, residential segregation — like redlining — and systematic disinvestment in neighborhoods. Disinvestment can be things like denying people access to loans to buy homes, housing neglect, underfunded schools, fewer job opportunities and lower-paying jobs, emphasis on policing over pro-social resources, and others. Over time, disinvestment puts residents in high-poverty neighborhoods at a greater risk of experiencing violence.