According to a recent report of the United Nations Interagency Group for the Estimation of Infant Mortality (IGME), in In 2021, around 26,058 adolescents and young people between the ages of 15 and 24 died in Mexico. This equates to a death rate of 12.08 per 1,000 people at that age. The index is higher than the world average, which was estimated at 11.
The country also exceeds the average mortality rate for children under 25 years of age in North America, since in this region it was 8 for 2021.
Although scientific and health advances have made it possible to reduce the probability of death of children, adolescents and young people, in Mexico progress has been partial due to the high rates of violence, explains Rodolfo de la Torre, director of Social Mobility at the Espinosa Yglesias Study Center.
Even the youth mortality rate was slightly higher last year than 30 years ago, in 1990, when it was estimated at 11.53.
In 2005 there was an improvement, since the lowest mortality was reported in young people, with a rate of 8.5, according to IGME estimates. Starting in 2006, the date that coincides with the six-year term of former President Felipe Calderón in which the so-called “war on drugs” was declared, youth mortality rebounded until reaching its maximum level in 2021.
Young men, those with the highest risk of dying
The data from the report shows that in 2021, 19,565 men between the ages of 15 and 24 died, as well as 6,493 women in the same age range. The mortality rate for men under 25 years of age was 18.04 per thousand, and that of women, 6.05.
“In our country, unfortunately, in some regions life expectancy has been shortened, especially among the population aged 15 years. and more, and in particular of men, because of crime, because of violent deaths, because of murders”, laments Rodolfo de la Torre.
This has been registered, above all, in the north of the country, he emphasizes. In Chihuahua, for example, it is one of the states with the highest rate of youth mortality.
