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Section 5 - Conclusions

There were 86 water-related fatalities in Wales in children and young people under 25 years of age between 2013 and 2022; 62 were non-intentional.

For the non-intentional fatalities, almost half (47%) of the fatalities occurred during June, July and August, and Sunday was the most common day of occurrence.

Seventy-nine percent of the children and young people were male.

Over half (58%) of the fatalities occurred in the 18-24 years age group, even though the proportion of young people in this age group accounted for less than one third of the population of children and young people aged 0-24 years of age, therefore this age group was over represented.

The presence of drugs or alcohol was noted in almost half (47%) of fatalities in the 18-24 years age group.

Almost half of the children and young people (44%) were taking part in activities where they had not intended entering the water when the fatal incident occurred.

A third of fatalities occurred in a river and a third occurred at the coast, shore, or beach and over half of the fatalities occurred in five out of 22 local authorities.

This information will be useful for water safety professionals to inform their prevention work in order to reduce the number of water-related fatalities in children and young people.