It’s a persistent, deadly public health issue that’s gotten worse in recent years: the drowning rate for Black Americans, already disproportionately high, has surged since 2019. Nearly 40% of Black adults say they don’t know how to swim, while Black adolescents are three times more likely to die by drowning than their white peers.
Yet as pools across the country open for the summer, the Black community could be at even higher risk for drownings. That’s because the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resulted in the near shutdown of a team that helps keep people safe around the water.
RELATED: As Drownings Rise, Groups Teach Black People to Swim, Not Sink
That team, the CDC Injury Prevention Center, tracked and publicized drowning deaths across the country, helping local officials pinpoint where drownings are more likely to occur.
“Closing Deadly Gaps”
The team “has been crucial in preventing drownings, especially in Black and minority communities who have long faced disproportionate rates of drowning,” says Sharon Gilmartin, executive director of Safe States Alliance, a nonprofit organization focused on injury and violence prevention.
“Its support for swim education and community programs was closing deadly gaps and saving lives across the country — until April’s federal layoffs eliminated the very team leading this lifesaving work,” she says.
Data released in May 2024 reveals the extent of the problem.
“[The CDC team] has been crucial in preventing drownings, especially in Black and minority communities who have long faced disproportionate rates of drowning.”
Sharon Gilmartin, executive director, Safe States Alliance
The drowning rate for Black Americans was 28% higher in 2021 than in 2019. The most significant increases in drowning deaths were among groups already known to be vulnerable: children under age 4, adults 65 and older, and Black and American Indian or Alaska Native individuals.
The racial disparities are stark. Black children aged 5 to 9 drowned overall at more than twice the rate of white children the same age, while Black children aged 10 to 14 drowned at nearly 4 times the rate of whites. higher, respectively, than their white peers. In swimming pools, Black children ages 10 to 14 drown 7.6 times more often than white children.
The danger even extends into adulthood: Black young adults up to age 30 drown 1.5 times more often than whites in the same age group. Just 37% of Black people in the U.S. have taken swimming lessons.
Deadly Blind Spots
Drowning incidents and fatalities are largely underreported in the U.S. and globally. And there is no single standard that guides how coroners or medical examiners identify drowning as a cause of death.
While a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said the federal government will continue to support drowning prevention programs, experts say it isn’t enough. They believe the end of the CDC drowning-prevention team will lead to potentially deadly blind spots in federal and local safety strategies.
One of the research team’s last studies, released this May, found that hundreds of lives could be saved each year if pools had more life jackets on hand and put up fencing to prevent trespassing.
“These known strategies are already helping to prevent drowning incidents, but there remains a substantial unrealised potential for saving more lives,” according to the study.
Reaching the Right People
“The way that this was done means that there was a lot of taxpayer dollars that were wasted here because there was work already in process,” one CDC official, speaking anonymously, told POLITICO. “Especially for something like drowning, that literally nobody else is working on.”
Localities had used the CDC’s data to plan drowning-prevention strategies. In Chicago, for example, Lake Michigan — the scene of more than 50 drownings in 2024 alone — is an area of focus.
“We use [CDC data] to plan our own programming,” Amy Hill, a member of Chicago’s water safety task force, told Politico. “Without it, it’s harder to reach the right people.”
For now, states are still receiving CDC grants for water safety, but given President Donald Trump’s drastic, chaotic government restructuring and budget cuts, there is no guarantee that this will continue.
“That is sort of another level of devastation,” one CDC official told Politico.
“This work that we were doing to try and understand how to increase engagement among people who have higher rates of drowning — I think that might stop,” said one scientist. “And that’s really unfortunate, because those kids need swim lessons.”
