The data is in the Unicef Innocenti report card document, A league table of child deaths by injury in rich nations, published last week. The report found that each year more than 20,000 children in the world's wealthiest nations die from injuries.
Traffic accidents, drowning, fires, falls and intentional injuries account for more than 40 per cent of deaths and, for every injured child who dies, many more live on with varying degrees of disability and trauma.
The UK is ranked second, after Sweden, in terms of having the least numbers of child injury deaths. At the bottom of the table are the United States and Portugal, where the rate of child deaths is more than twice the level of the safest countries, and South Korea, where the rate is four times higher.
The UK's relatively safe ranking masks disparities across the country. In Britain, children whose parents have unskilled manual jobs are three or four times more likely to die of injury than children whose parents work in skilled non-manual jobs. The document also notes that the UK has a bad record for child deaths from fires.
Death through injury was also found to be more common for boys than girls in all developed countries. This gender gap even appeared among the youngest children, with boys aged one to four already 40 per cent more likely to die of injury than girls.
The report said, 'More important than all of these calculations is the fact that the loss of a child is every family's worst nightmare - a nightmare that becomes a daylight reality for more than 20,000 families every year in the industrialised world.'
