Drowning Deaths Rose in the U.S., 2020–2022, and 40 Million Adults Cannot Swim

Drowning deaths went up

More than 4,500 people drowned each year in the United States in 2020–2022 — about 500 more a year than in 2019. Groups already at higher risk saw the largest increases: young children and older adults of every race and ethnicity, and Black people of every age.

By age

• Drowning is the leading cause of death for children aged 1–4. Their drowning rate was 28% higher in 2022 than in 2019.
• Adults 65 and older have the second-highest drowning rate. Among those aged 65–74 it rose 19% from 2019 to 2022.

By race and ethnicity

• American Indian and Alaska Native people have the highest drowning rates of any group. Their rate did not rise in 2020–2022, but it stayed above every other group's.
• Black people have the second-highest rates, and theirs was 28% higher in 2021 than in 2019.

40 million adults cannot swim

Basic swimming and water safety training is a proven way to prevent drowning, but some groups are far less likely to have had it.

• More than 1 in 3 Black adults (37%) said they could not swim, against 15% of all adults.
• Over half (55%) of all U.S. adults have never taken a swimming lesson — including about 2 in 3 Black adults (63%) and about 3 in 4 Hispanic adults (72%).

Swimming lessons in the U.S., by race and ethnicity. Infographic from CDC's Vital Signs.

Why the gap

• Cost and access: lessons can be expensive, or not offered in a community at all.
• Fear of water, pools or classes that do not feel welcoming, and discomfort with traditional swimwear.
• History: many Black, American Indian and Alaska Native people name lack of access to pools as a barrier. Under racial segregation there were few pools to use, and many were poorly kept or too shallow to swim in. After desegregation, many public pools closed, and communities built fewer new ones for decades. That legacy, and other discrimination, may still shape how later generations feel about lessons and whether they take them.
• The pandemic: many public pools closed, cutting lessons; when they reopened, many faced shortages of instructors and lifeguards.

Many more barriers exist, some complex and poorly understood. Better data on a community's social and cultural makeup would help design programs that suit it.

What can be done

Community actions to reduce drowning risk. Infographic from CDC's Vital Signs.

Public health professionals and state, local, tribal and territorial governments can:

• make basic swimming and water safety training available and affordable for everyone;
• decide whether new policies or laws would improve access to safe swimming;
• find places with no safe place to swim or learn, and build or revitalize pools there;
• put diverse, equitable, culturally appropriate and inclusive training first;
• use the U.S. National Water Safety Action Plan — written by drowning prevention organizations and hundreds of volunteer experts, with CDC among the contributors — to draw up state and local plans.

Aquatics training providers can:

• find out what keeps people in their community from taking lessons;
• use or adapt programs that show respect and cultural understanding, so everyone feels welcome;
• work with local partners who can reach the people at highest risk;
• build water safety — life jackets, watching children in and near water — into every lesson.

CDC collects data on drowning risk and barriers to lessons, and works with partners — the YMCA, the American Red Cross and the Water Safety Action Plan — to widen access to training, especially for people at higher risk.

Everyone can:

• learn to swim: take basic swimming and water safety training, which is hands-on, in the water;
• make sure children get that training too;
• watch children closely whenever they are in or near water — pools, bathtubs, even buckets — even after lessons;
• skip alcohol before and during swimming and boating, and wear a life jacket.

Find lessons through the Red Cross, the YMCA, U.S. Swim School Association or USA Swimming, and see CDC's Preventing Drowning.

Sources

Based on "Drowning Increases in the U.S.," CDC Vital Signs, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (updated June 18, 2024), and the report behind it, "Vital Signs: Drowning Death Rates, Self-Reported Swimming Skill, Swimming Lesson Participation, and Recreational Water Exposure — United States, 2019–2023," MMWR; works of the United States government in the public domain. The source's icons and its photo collage are not reproduced.