Nearly 80 percent of deaths among Americans age 30 and younger are a direct result of injury, suicide or violence, according to a report by U.S. health researchers published in the Lancet and reported by CBS News.

Scientists declared the findings a “public health issue” and suggested that the country needs more far-reaching injury and violence prevention efforts.

Prevention tactics discussed in the study included: Child safety-seat requirements, seat belt laws, drinking and driving legal penalties, gun-safety legislation, school-based violence prevention programs and suicide prevention counseling. Researchers also discussed opting for therapeutic foster care instead of juvenile incarceration as well as setting up injury-prevention education programs in local healthcare facilities.

“What saves tens of thousands of lives are systems that work so people don’t get hurt,” said Leopoldo Malvezzi, MD, trauma director at Miami Children’s Hospital and an author of the study. “Hospitals have to have an injury-prevention program. That, strangely enough, saves more people than even a trauma program.”

Further findings from the report showed that for all ages, the top causes of injury deaths since 2010 were motor vehicle crashes, poisoning, falls, firearm suicides and firearm homicides. In addition, findings showed that suicides occurred two times more often than murders. Homicide rates for African Americans were double that of Native Americans and were several times higher than among all other U.S. racial groups. And deaths from narcotic painkillers have more than quadrupled since 1990.

Studies also show that when it comes to violence, who lives and dies in the ER is a color issue. For more information, click here.