[maxerickson]

The gadget here puts the overall US rate at 1.07 in 2013

http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html

I did 18-24, it says 1.18.

24-34, 0.98.

5-12, 0.49.

I wonder what factors into the differences. I'm sure things like number of guarded facilities, number of swimmers and amount of swim classes are important, it's the specific differences that would be interesting.

[Rebelgecko]

If you go year by year it looks like the rate goes up from 17-20, then after 21 starts to decrease. Somewhere else on the CDC's website they say that "alcohol use is involved in up to 70% of deaths associated with water recreation", which seems pretty consistent with that.