Giving Compass' Take:

• A study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the largest cause of youth injury is car crashes, followed by firearms. 

• Authors of the report have seen efforts to decrease the number of car crashes with campaigns against drunk driving and seat belt use. However, they have seen fewer effective interventions when it comes to firearms. How can donors play a role in driving efforts to prevent gun violence among young people?

• Read about how to fight gun violence in America with science. 

The major cause of death in children aged 1 to 19 years is not cancer or other another medical condition. It's injury. And by a long shot – 61 percent, versus 9 percent for cancer.

The largest cause of injury was motor vehicle crashes, and next was firearms, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study sorts through the 20,360 deaths of U.S. children and adolescents in 2016, as counted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The authors of the report also found that the U.S. compares poorly to other countries, both rich and poor, in terms of providing a safe environment for kids.

Lead author Rebecca Cunningham of the University of Michigan, who has been an emergency room physician for 20 years, wasn't surprised. "I've been taking care of kids and unfortunately giving bad news to families for several decades," she says.

Cunningham sees some good news in the motor vehicle number. "In the U.S. we've invested in decreasing motor vehicle crash deaths and we've been tremendously successful at that," she says. She and her colleagues credit seat belts, car seats for children, safety improvements to cars, the construction of better roads, and growing awareness of the hazards of teen drinking and driving.

But when it comes to firearms there have been no effective interventions to prevent deliberate and accidental gun deaths. While the death rate from guns remained flat from 1999 to 2013, it jumped 28 percent in the next three years, to 4 deaths per 100,000 American kids. "We're seeing increases in both gun homicide and gun suicide" among children and adolescents, Cunningham says.

The overall message of the data to both Cunningham and Campion is that if other countries can have lower rates of death for their children and adolescents, the U.S. can too.

Read the full article about causes for youth deaths in the U.S. by Joanne Silberner at NPR