The suicide rate went from 6.8 deaths per 100,000 young people in 2007 to 11 in 2021.
Photo: ANGELA WEISS/Getty Images
The suicide rate for young Americans ages 10-24 increased 62% from 2007 to 2021according to a report published this Thursday by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
According to the study, the suicide rate went from 6.8 deaths per 100,000 young people in 2007 to 11 in 2021after between 2001 and 2007 it had remained stable.
Specifically, the suicide rate for adolescents between the ages of 10 and 14 tripled between 2007 and 2018and that of young people between 15 and 19 came to exceed the homicide rate in 2020.
Among people aged 20 to 24, both the suicide and homicide rates rose during the covid-19 pandemic to the highest level in two decades.
The largest annual increase occurred in 2021when suicide rates among 20-somethings shot up 9%, to 19.4 suicide deaths per 100,000 people.
The report does not detail the reasons for this increase, but experts who have studied risk factors for suicide and depression among adolescents and young people have pointed to stress, social networks and the pandemic.
Researchers at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Schmidt College of Medicine and colleagues conducted research a few months ago in which they found that Suicide rate for 13- to 14-year-olds doubled in a decade with the rise of social media.
The results of the analysis of the figures “showed that among children aged 13 to 14, lSuicide rates doubled more than 2008 to 2018, following an increase in social media”, reads the investigation.
As explained in the research, these statistically significant increasing trends were similar across gender, race, urbanization, and census tracts. In rural areas, firearms were used in 46.7% of male suicides and 34.7% in metropolitan areas.
Keep reading:
• 6.5 million Californians are concerned that someone they know will hurt them
• Teen suicide rates doubled in the US as a result of the rise of social media
• Washington bans the sale of AR-15 weapons; There are already nine states that stopped selling them
