(Nashville) More kids died in Shelby County in 2011, than anywhere else in the state. The Tennessee Department of Health released its 2011 Child Fatality Report Tuesday.
While the overall death and infant mortality rate declined for the state, numbers are still high for Shelby County.
There were a total of 898 deaths in 2011 and 192 of those children were from Shelby County.
That’s an increase from 2010 when records show 151 kids died in Shelby County.
The biggest cause of death for all children was natural/medical. Of the children who died for medical reasons, 131 were premature.
Across the state, there were a total of 39 homicides, 19 of those cases included the use of a firearm.
There were 38 children who died, who had an open case with Child Protective Services at the time of their death, and 109 suffered some form of abuse or neglect.
WREG obtained research from the Shelby County Health Department regarding child fatalities from previous years. There were 566 children who died between 2008-2010.
More than 300 of those were related to natural causes.
Children under the age of one are the most vulnerable.
The overwhelming majority of children, 434, were African-American, and of that, 263 were male.
