Commission spotlights child deaths and launches cross-system prevention reporting

Liz Cop, program manager for the Child Death Review Board, presented the board's 2026 recommendations drawn from case reviews: criminalize negligent firearm storage that allows unsupervised child access; deliver safe-sleep education beginning in the prenatal period; amend Title 47 (11-112) to require rear-seat restraints for all children and allow citations without a prerequisite offense; and ask the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority to strengthen child-safety labeling on THC products.

Cop said the recommendations are rooted in case patterns the board is seeing: unsafe-sleep deaths are persistent, and ingesting THC products has caused severe pediatric hospitalizations. Commissioners asked for more data and the board noted that 2023 and 2024 data are still being finalized but that the trend is concerning.

In the executive director's quarterly report, OCCY staff previewed a new cross-agency data initiative to track child deaths in near real time. Using death-certificate reporting, the agency will catalogue monthly deaths of children under 18 by cause (natural, pending/investigation, accident, homicide, suicide) and map which oversight or prevention programs had contact with the child. The director showed October as a sample month: 44 child deaths in that month alone, 28 listed as "natural," nine marked pending, and several involving unsafe sleep, vehicular incidents and a small number of firearm homicides and suicides. OCCY staff said this pattern will be used to coordinate prevention outreach and public education (helmet and seat-belt use, safe sleep, gun storage, and ingestion-prevention messaging).

Ending: The commission asked OCCY to share the finalized CDRB white papers and to provide the quarterly dashboard and presentations to stakeholders and commissioners for prevention planning.