Skip to content
Life Guide Situations Guides

    Type a keyword to search
    English

    Keep children in sight near water, and wear a life jacket when boating or swimming in open water

    • High value
    • Evidence A
    • Buys life
    • Costs a little
    • Takes some hours
    • No willpower

    In plain words

    If you fall into the water wearing a life jacket, your chance of drowning is about half that of someone not wearing one. Drowning is still the leading cause of death for children aged 1 to 14 in China. The drowning death rate in rural areas is about twice that in cities.

    Cost

    A life jacket costs 50 to 200 CNY. On top of that comes the attention it takes to watch the child.

    What you get

    A study using U.S. Coast Guard data compared people in matched pairs with similar circumstances. Among people who fell into the water from recreational boats, those wearing a life jacket had about half the risk of drowning. The adjusted figure was RR 0.51 (95% CI 0.35 to 0.74, the plausible range). The drowning death rate for people under 20 in China fell from 6.60 per 100,000 people in 2013 to 3.28 per 100,000 in 2021. The rural rate is about 2 times the urban one: in 2021 it was 3.84 per 100,000 people in rural areas and 2.01 in cities. Drowning remains the leading cause of death for children aged 1 to 14. In 2021 the drowning death rate at ages 1 to 14 was 3.23 per 100,000 people, 0.99 higher than road traffic injury, which ranks second. Of injury deaths at ages 0 to 19 in 2021, drowning accounted for 31.1% and road traffic for 27.9%. The drowning death rate is highest at ages 15 to 19, at 3.95 per 100,000 people, and 5.99 for males in that group.

    Notes

    Grade A applies only to the life jacket half. “Keeping them in sight” is what everyone agrees on; on its own it is only grade C, because there is no randomized trial and there never will be. Drowning deaths in China are concentrated in rural areas and among males aged 15 to 19. For playing on ice in winter, see §1.41 (measure the ice before stepping on wild ice).

    Evidence grade
    A : Specific numbers from meta-analyses, large cohorts or randomized trials; for law and policy, the statute or official text.
    Sources
    1. Cummings P et al. (2011). Association between wearing a personal floatation device and death by drowning among recreational boaters. Injury Prevention. https://doi.org/10.1136/ip.2010.028688
    2. Li Z et al. (2023). Unintentional Drowning Mortality Among Individuals Under Age 20 — China, 2013–2021. China CDC Weekly: "in China, it is deemed the primary cause of death for children between the ages of 1 and 14. According to 2021 data, the rate of unintentional drowning in this age group is 3.23 per 100,000, surpassing road traffic injuries, the second leading cause of fatalities, by 0.99 per 100,000." "rural areas exhibited roughly double the mortality rate found in urban areas". https://doi.org/10.46234/ccdcw2023.198
    3. Zhou J et al. (2024). Injury Mortality of Children and Adolescents Aged 0–19 Years — China, 2010–2021. China CDC Weekly: "drowning and road traffic crashes were the top two causes of child injury deaths, explaing 31.1% and 27.9% of total injury deaths". https://doi.org/10.46234/ccdcw2024.057

    This tip also appears in

    Mentioned in

    Translated from the Chinese original. Original book, section 1, tip 12. This section is about health and medicines. It is general information, not a substitute for a doctor’s diagnosis or prescription. Content may be out of date and rules differ by place. When you actually deal with an agency, a doctor or a court, follow what local officials, doctors and lawyers tell you. Disclaimer