Health experts and medical groups are increasingly sounding the alarm about child and teen mental health after research published on Monday, April 25, showed adolescents accounting for a larger share of suicides across 14 states in 2020 than they did over the previous five years.
The findings were described in a research letter published in JAMA Pediatrics. In October of last year, three prominent children's health organizations declared that child and adolescent mental health had become a national emergency in the U.S.
The groups' announcement followed a worrying report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which tracked emergency room visits from suspected suicide attempts before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Teen suicides rising in the United States
The study results showed that emergency room visits in February and March 2021 from suspected suicide attempts were 50 percent higher among girls ages 12 to 17 compared to the same period in 2019.
For the new study, a team of researchers from Boston compared the number of suicides among children and teens ages 10 to 19 in 2020 to the average from 2015 to 2019. The researchers then analyzed the totals in relation to suicides across all age groups. The results revealed that adolescents accounted for a larger share of all suicides in 2020 (6.5 percent) than during the five previous years, which was 5.9 percent from 2015 to 2019.
The findings also showed significant variations among 14 states, with adolescents accounting for a larger proportion of all suicides in New Jersey, Oklahoma, California, Virginia, Georgia, and Indiana in 2020 than they had previously. The share dropped in Alaska and Montana, while Connecticut, Nebraska, Arkansas, Colorado, Vermont, and Ohio did not have statistically significant increases or decreases.
The new research is timely as it comes on the heels of two recent suicides among high-profile college athletes: University of Wisconsin track star Sarah Shulze and Stanford women's soccer player Katie Meyer.
According to the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention, suicide is the second-leading cause of death among college students and the third-leading cause of death among young people.
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Is the COVID pandemic a contributing factor in the rise of teen suicides?
It is unclear, though, how big a role the COVID pandemic has played in the recent suicide trends because depression and anxiety among children and teens were a public health issue even before the pandemic started.
According to the CDC, 1 in 5 teenagers in the United States had experienced episodes of major depression at some point from 2013 to 2019. Suicide rates among people ages 10 to 24 also rose by 57 percent from 2007 to 2018.
Regina Miranda, a psychology professor at Hunter College, told NBC News that they were already seeing increases in rates of mental health problems, including suicide rates, among youth even before the COVID pandemic, so it would not be surprising if they continue to see increases, especially among the youth of color.
