Drowning

Drowning is a leading killer. The Global status report on drowning prevention shows that over 300 000 people lost their lives to drowning in 2021, Drowning disproportionately impacts children and young people. Children aged under 5 years account for nearly a quarter of all drowning deaths, and more than half of deaths occur among people aged under 30 years.

Over 90% of drowning deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Drowning prevention interventions range from community-based solutions, such as day care for children and barriers controlling access to water, to effective national policies and legislation around water safety, including setting and enforcing boating, shipping and ferry regulations.

While significant progress has been made in reducing drowning deaths, much more needs to be done. Everyone should have safe access to water and be able to enjoy water safely.

There are many actions to prevent drowning. Installing barriers (e.g. covering wells, using doorway barriers and playpens, fencing swimming pools etc.) to control access to water hazards, or removing water hazards entirely greatly reduces water hazard exposure and risk.

Community-based, supervised child care for pre-school children can reduce drowning risk and has other proven health benefits. Teaching school-age children basic swimming, water safety and safe rescue skills is another approach. But these efforts must be undertaken with an emphasis on safety, and an overall risk management that includes a safety-tested curricula, a safe training area, screening and student selection, and student-instructor ratios established for safety.

Effective policies and legislation are also important for drowning prevention. Setting and enforcing safe boating, shipping and ferry regulations is an important part of improving safety on the water and preventing drowning. Building resilience to flooding and managing flood risks through better disaster preparedness planning, land use planning, and early warning systems can prevent drowning during flood disasters.

Developing a national water safety strategy can raise awareness of safety around water, build consensus around solutions, provide strategic direction and a framework to guide multisectoral action and allow for monitoring and evaluation of efforts.

WHO produces a range of technical resources to guide and inform drowning prevention efforts around the world. These include the Global status report on drowning prevention, which details the scale of global drowning fatalities and progress made in advancing strategies and actions to reduce drowning, Practical guidelines on the provision of day-care, basic swimming and water safety skills, and safe rescue and resuscitation training, and the first investment case on drowning prevention, which highlights the financial return of two crucial measures: teaching school-aged children swimming and water safety skills and providing safe spaces with adult supervision for pre-school children.

At the regional level, WHO organizes training programmes and convenes workshops to bring together representatives of governments, NGOs and UN agencies working on drowning prevention. At the country level, WHO works with Ministries of Health to prevent drowning through the use of barriers controlling access to water and the establishment of day care centres for pre-school children. In addition, WHO has funded research in low-income countries exploring priority questions related to drowning prevention.