For most of the U.S., the Memorial Day holiday signals the opening of the swimming season. Oceanside beaches, lakes, rivers, and swimming pools are usually teeming with water enthusiasts of all ages and abilities.
Yet as millions of Americans plan to head to pools and beaches during the summer, public health experts warn that Black children remain far more likely to drown than white kids. And the Trump administration has targeted federal programs designed to track and prevent those deaths for major budget cuts.
The combination of funding cuts for water safety and the unofficial start of summer means increased risk for Black Americans. Drowning is the single leading overall cause of death for children ages one to four in the U.S. — ahead of car crashes and cancer.
And young Black people are at particular risk: those under age 30 are 1.5 times more likely than whites to drown.
Cuts to Prevention
That data point became tragically visible last month in the ocean off the coast of Morocco. Two Black U.S. service members, ages 19 and 27, drowned when, on a recreational hike with others, one person — unable to swim — fell into the water, prompting the other to jump in to try and rescue her.
Sharon Gilmartin, executive director of Safe States Alliance, a nonprofit injury prevention organization, said the budget cuts have eliminated a key source of information that could help keep people safe.
“When you cut the federal investments into drowning prevention at the CDC Injury Center, you don’t just lose programs,” she says. “You lose the ability to know what’s working, where the problem is getting worse and which communities need help most.”
Private funders “can [offer] piecemeal solutions, whether that’s for swim lessons or for specific communities,” she says. “But they can’t replicate a national surveillance system. They can’t replicate national expertise.”
Black Youth At Risk
Drowning disparities are highest among Black children, with those aged 5 to 9 drowning at rates 2.6 times higher than their white peers. The data are even worse for those aged 10 to 14, who are more than three times as likely to drown than white children.
While swimming pools don’t have the undertow of ocean water or the bitter cold of lakes, Black children ages 10 to 14 swimming in a pool still drown at rates that are 7.6 times higher than white children.
When you cut the federal investments into drowning prevention … you don’t just lose programs. You lose the ability to know what’s working, where the problem is getting worse and which communities need help most.”
Sharon Gilmartin, executive director, Safe States Alliance
Even more alarming: data shows that after years of decline, drowning deaths rose in this age group by 28% between 2019 and 2022—during the COVID-19 pandemic. Black people were overrepresented in that trend, as, compared to 2019, drowning rates increased by 22.2% in 2020 and 28.3% in 2021.
A Problem Rooted in the Past
The disparities did not emerge by accident.
For generations, Black Americans were locked out of public pools and beaches by segregation, violence and discriminatory policies. That included lack of access to swim education, lifeguard programs and safe recreational spaces. The issue was compounded by the closure of pools in Black neighborhoods and private lessons that many working-class families can’t afford.
Federal agencies, state governments, and nonprofits are increasingly moving toward free swim education access, community-level action plans, and equity-centered frameworks, focused on Black American communities.
But the government recently cut more than 200 positions from the CDC Injury Center — the leading agency working to prevent overdose, suicide, and other injuries nationwide. i And Trump’s budget proposal for next year eliminates the program entirely as well as ending the annual drowning report, a valuable resource for prevention.
But more than 50 national organizations, including philanthropies, universities, and health agencies, formed the Keep America Safe Coalition and managed to keep the center funded at the previous level.
‘Deadliest Year’ for Child Drowning
On a press call about water safety last week, Rep Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a Florida Democrat, said the need for swimming safety is urgent: “We just had the deadliest year on record for child drownings.”
The increase “is the first time that we’ve had a reversal” in drowning deaths, Wasserman-Shultz says. “One hundred nineteen children tragically lost their lives in 2025 and it’s an excruciating loss to think about. Every single person we lose to drowning is one too many.”
Tony Gomez, a public health and injury prevention official for Seattle and King County, Washington, who also was on the call, says on-the-ground coordination is important.
“At the local level, the importance of having a federal to state to local, with research entities and nonprofits all working together — like so many public health and public safety conditions — cannot be emphasized enough.”
National Issue, Local Solutions
Other call participants pointed to solutions at the local level.
In Atlanta, for example, the city decided to allow city residents to enter all of its swimming pools for free, said Ryan Greenstein director of advocacy and public policy for YMCA of Metro Atlanta.
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As the federal government pulls back on drowning prevention, “there are other levels of government trying to do their part to either do swim scholarships, [offer] swim lessons,make pools more accessible and also create employment opportunities — lifeguards, aquatics directors and others at the local level.”