PHOENIX — The latest annual report from the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office reveals that homicides in the Valley are at their highest level since 1991.
The sobering statistic is just one of the death-related data points that is trending in the wrong direction.
Traffic fatalities, suicides, and pediatric deaths are all at seven-year highs, according to the report.
"The goal of our investigations is to try to understand these deaths, so we can improve the lives of the living," said Dr. Jeffrey Johnston, Maricopa County's Chief Medical Examiner.
Child Deaths
Dr. Johnston told ABC15 the vast majority of child deaths are preventable. As a father and medical examiner, he said parents should think of each age group as bringing a new risk.
"So, we've got infants, and the biggest risk there is unsafe sleep environments," said Dr. Johnston, who noted 56% of all infant deaths were associated with those sleep environments.
"Then the toddlers... those kids that are one to three years old. For them, drowning is kind of the biggest risk. Then we've got the children four to 12 years old. For them, it's car crashes... and then with adolescents, you start seeing some of these more adult problems, like the firearm trauma and the traffic fatalities and the drug cases."
Substance-Abuse
For Dr. Johnston and his team, the damaging effect of drugs cannot be overstated.
"Substance abuse is the by far the biggest cause of death in the patients that we see," said Dr. Johnston. "It's 28% of our caseload right now. It's the most impactful thing we can do, is to help people who are struggling with substance use disorders."
Drug-related deaths actually decreased by 1.6% in 2022, but they have skyrocketed by 158% compared to 2012.
"We really produce these reports... in order to try and put ourselves out of business," said Dr. Johnston.
The good news from the report was that drowning and accidental drug overdoses decreased by 5% each. In 2022, the overall accidental death rate dropped 1.5%, the natural death case rate dropped 6.2%.
In 2022, there were 43,972 deaths, a 10% decrease from the prior year, as excess mortality from COVID-19 improved. Death rates were still at least 20% higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Toxicology and Traffic Deaths
For the first time, this year's report also included toxicology testing in most traffic fatalities involving drivers, pedestrians, pedestrians experiencing homelessness, and bicyclists.
Testing positive does not necessarily mean impairment at the time of death, but that one or more substances were detected. Risk of impairment was detected in four of five traffic deaths in pedestrians experiencing homelessness.
Three in four deaths for all other pedestrians. Positive toxicology testing was also found in the majority of traffic deaths for both drivers and cyclists.
Cannabis and alcohol were the leading substances found in drivers who died at the wheel.
For pedestrians and bicyclists, the substance with the most positive tests was methamphetamines. Seventy-eight percent of pedestrian deaths in homeless individuals tested positive for meth.
One in four driver deaths, 26%, was also found to have methamphetamines in their system. This all happened as overall deaths from methamphetamines rose 3.9% in the Valley from 2021 to 2022.
The report also stated the 'sobering fact' that "gunshot wounds cause more deaths in the county annually than traffic injuries, a trend that has been the case every year since 2015 apart from 2021."
