State officials have released an annual report on child fatalities. It shows about half of the deaths were preventable, with a high percentage caused by car crashes, guns and suffocation.
While there was a 5.5% decrease in accidental child deaths overall, there was an increase in both drownings and heat-related deaths.
Dr. John McGreevy, with Phoenix Children’s Hospital, discussed the report on PBS’s "Arizona Horizon."
"We have definitely seen our fair share of hot summers, of these last two in particular, but, you know, there are some things regarding supervision that would really help make a difference — whether that’s changing your routine, or whether that’s not hiking on a hot day," McGreevy said.
The number of Arizona children who died from diseases preventable by vaccines also increased.
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In Arizona, more than 10.5% of kindergartners had an exemption from mandatory school vaccines, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. -
Will Humble with the Arizona Public Health Association says the order may be an effort to help push Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s changes in vaccine schedules that have been blocked in courts. -
Measles continues to spread in Arizona and as kids are heading back to school, most classrooms across the state have immunization rates below the level recommended to prevent an outbreak. -
Pinal and Maricopa counties confirmed new cases this week. And Yavapai County on Wednesday confirmed its first measles case of 2026. -
There were more than 2,000 confirmed cases of measles in the U.S. as of last week. That’s according to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is only a couple hundred cases away from the total from all of last year.
