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SUICIDE RATE AMONG TEENS IN US |
Suicide rate among American girls
alarmingly up
8 September, 2007
Suicide rate among preteen and
young teen girls in the United States
has risen dramatically.
In a “disturbing shift and a dramatic
and huge increase” that federal health
officials said they cannot explain
fully, for all young people between
ages 10 to 24, the suicide rate rose
by an alarming 8% from 2003 to 2004 –
the biggest single-year jump in 15
years.
A report by the United States Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), based on the latest numbers
available, suggests a troubling
reversal in recent trends. Suicide
rates had fallen by 28.5% since 1990
among young people.
The biggest increase was in the
suicide rate for girls aged 10 to 14.
There were 94 suicides in that age
group in 2004, compared to 56 in 2003,
a 67%
increase. Overall, the rate is still
low – fewer than one per 100,000
population.
Suicide rates among older teen girls,
those aged 15-19, shot up by 32%;
rates for males in that age group rose
by 9%.
Dr Ileana Arias, director of the CDC’s
National Center for Injury Prevention
and Control, remarked: “In
surveillance speak, this is a dramatic
and huge
increase.”
Overall, there were 4,599 suicides
among young people in 2004, making it
the third-leading cause of death,
surpassed only by car crashes and
homicide. Males committed suicide far
more often than females, accounting
for about three-quarters of suicides
in this age group.
The study also documented a change in
suicide methods. In 1990, guns
accounted for more than half of all
suicides among young females. By 2004,
death by hanging and suffocation
became the most common method of
suicide – accounting for about 70% of
all suicides in girls aged 10-14;
about half of those aged 15-19; and
34% between 20-24.
“While we can’t say hanging is a trend
yet, we are confident that’s an
unusually high number in 2004,” Dr
Keri Lubell, behavioral scientist with
the CDC and one of the authors of the
study, said.
Scientists speculated that hanging may
have become the most accessible
method.
The CDC is advising health officials
to consider focusing suicide
prevention programs on girls aged
10-19 and boys aged 15-19 to reverse
the suicide trends. It also said the
suicide methods suggest that
prevention focused solely on
restricting access to pills, weapons
or other lethal means may be of
limited success.
As for why the suicide rates are up,
Richard Lieberman, who coordinates the
suicide prevention program for Los
Angeles public schools, said one cause
could be a rise in depression during
tumultuous adolescent years. He
explains: “There’s a lot of pressure
in and around middle-school kids.
They’re kind of all transition kids.
They’re turbulent times to begin
with.”
Four years ago, federal regulators had
warned that antidepressants seemed to
raise the risk of suicidal behavior
among young people, so black box
warnings were put on the drugs’
packaging.
When partial teen suicide data was
published earlier in 2007, experts
noted at the time that the drop in
sales of the drugs corresponded with a
rise in the suicide rate. Now there is
concern that some children who need
antidepressants are not getting it.
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