FACTS & FIGURES: Fatal Dog Attacks in the USA

The yearly number of fatal dog attacks in the USA is variously reported as 12, 17 and 26. The different numbers result from different studies which took place in different years. It is most accurate to say that the average number was 17 in the 1980s and 1990s, and that it has risen to 26 in this decade.

The study mentioning 12 deaths per year was published by CDC and called Dog-Bite-Related Fatalities -- United States, 1995-1996, MMWR 46(21):463-467, 1997. It related that there were 25 deaths in those two years (i.e., 12.5 per year), but a footnote said that the figure 25 probably represented only 75% of the actual number of dog bite related fatalities. This study nevertheless is the source of the oft-cited statistic that there are only 12 deaths per year; the footnote is routinely ignored.

The study itself referred to two prior studies for the purpose of providing a bigger and more accurate picture. The prior studies were published by JAMA and Pediatrics. (Sacks JJ, Sattin RW, Bonzo SE. Dog bite-related fatalities from 1979 through 1988. JAMA 1989;262:1489-92. Sacks JJ, Lockwood R, Hornreich J, Sattin RW. Fatal dog attacks, 1989-1994. Pediatrics 1996;97:891-5.) JAMA is the official journal of the American Medical Association, and Pediatrics is the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics; both are considered to be authoritative publications, which is one reason why the CDC relies upon them. These three studies, taken together, showed that from 1979 to 1996, 304 people in the US died from dog attacks. The average number of deaths per year was therefore 17. This conforms with the footnote in the 1997 study, too. Therefore, it is more accurate to summarize the publications as showing that the average number of deaths during the 18-year period of 1979 to 1996 was 17, despite the fact that the CDC itself routinely says the figure is 12.

Current information about fatal dog attacks is found in publications by individuals, not governmental agencies:

Merritt Clifton, Dog Attack Deaths and Maimings, US and Canada, September 1982 to November 13, 2006, click here to download.
Karen Delise, Fatal Dog Attacks: The Stories Behind the Statistics, 2002, self published, available by clicking here.
Kenneth Phillips, Canine Homicides, a section of Dangerous and Vicious Dogs, at this website.
Richard Polsky, Fatal Dog Attacks in the United States.
It should be noted that fatalities are highly unusual. For every fatal dog bite in the United States, there are 230,000 bites that are not treated by a physician.

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