Keep children in sight around water, and wear a life jacket when boating or swimming in open water
Wearing a life jacket roughly halves your risk of drowning after falling into water. Drowning remains the leading cause of death among children aged 1–14 in China; rural drowning mortality is about twice the urban rate.
What it takes
A life jacket costs RMB 50–200 in China. Watching children also requires your full attention.
What you may gain
A matched study using US Coast Guard data compared recreational boaters in similar circumstances. Life-jacket wearers had roughly half the drowning risk: adjusted RR 0.51, 95% CI 0.35–0.74. In China, drowning mortality among people under 20 fell from 6.60 per 100,000 in 2013 to 3.28 in 2021. The rural rate was about twice the urban rate. Drowning remained the leading cause of death at ages 1–14. Among injury deaths at ages 0–19 in 2021, drowning accounted for 31.1% and road traffic for 27.9%.
Context & considerations
Grade A applies only to life jackets. Keeping children continuously in sight is consensus advice, which would receive grade C on its own; there is no randomized trial, nor will there be one. Chinese drowning deaths are concentrated in rural areas, in summer, and among males aged 15–19.
Research & references
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 ; Li Z et al. (2023). Unintentional Drowning Mortality Among Individuals Under Age 20 — China, 2013–2021. China CDC Weekly. https://doi.org/10.46234/ccdcw2023.198 ; Zhou J et al. (2024). Injury Mortality of Children and Adolescents Aged 0–19 Years — China, 2010–2021. China CDC Weekly. https://doi.org/10.46234/ccdcw2024.057