Drowning Data Dashboard

Methodology

What counts as a drowning death

CDC counts deaths by the underlying cause on the death certificate, using ICD-10 codes. W65-W74 is unintentional drowning and submersion (bathtub, pool, natural water, other and unspecified). V90 and V92 add drowning in boating and other water-transport accidents. CDC’s headline figures use W65-W74 plus V90 and V92, so most charts here show that wider definition and say so.

Rates

A rate is deaths per 100,000 people. Age-adjusted rates remove the effect of a population getting older or younger, so years and groups can be compared fairly. CDC age-adjusts to the 2000 U.S. standard population. An age-group rate is deaths per 100,000 people in that age group.

Suppressed and unreliable values

CDC WONDER hides counts of 1 to 9 deaths to protect privacy, and does not publish a rate that is too unstable to trust. We show these as "Suppressed" or "Unreliable", never as a number or a zero. "Not applicable" means there is no population figure, so no rate exists.

Final and provisional data

Final data for a year are released once all death certificates are in. Provisional numbers come out sooner and change. We label provisional numbers every time we show them, and never mix them into a final trend line.

Where deaths are counted

CDC counts U.S. residents by where they lived, not where the drowning happened.

Race and Hispanic origin

Race and Hispanic origin on death certificates are reported by a funeral director, often from family members. Population counts come from the Census, where people describe themselves. CDC warns that the difference can bias rates by race. Hispanic or Latino people can be of any race; the race groups shown are non-Hispanic.

Coast Guard boating counts

The U.S. Coast Guard counts reportable recreational boating incidents that the states, territories and DC report. A boating death can be from drowning, trauma, hypothermia or another cause. These are not the same as CDC’s drowning counts.

WHO estimates

WHO’s Global Health Estimates are modeled estimates, not registered death counts. For countries with weak death registration they are uncertain. WHO rounds them when it prints them, and so do we. WHO says its 2000-2023 estimates are not comparable with earlier releases, including the round figures in its fact sheet.

Why sources are not mixed

CDC, the U.S. Coast Guard and WHO count different things in different ways. We keep each source in its own chart and never add their numbers together.

How often we update

CDC releases final death data once a year (the 2024 data came out in February 2026). The Coast Guard publishes its boating report yearly. We update these pages when new official data come out.

Data last checked October 18, 2026. We copy numbers exactly as the source publishes them. We do not estimate, model or add up numbers. Found a mistake? Tell us and we will check it against the source.