A new report published on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association using data published by the United States Center For Disease Control and Prevention said the rate of young adults and adolescents dying of suicide reached its highest level in nearly two decades, according to PBS NewsHour.
The report said there were 47 percent more suicides among people aged 15 to 19 in 2017 than in the year 2000; while there were also 36 percent more people aged 20 to 24 living in the U.S. today than at the turn of the century.
Suicides now rank as the second-leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 24 with more than 6,200, just slightly behind unintentional motor vehicle accidents which killed claimed 6,697 lives.
The report said that increase was particularly notable in young men, which for Oren Miron, a research associate at Harvard Medical School, said it reminded him of his own experience.
"In high school, a friend of mine was bullied, and he, unfortunately, took his life," Miron said. "He had such a brilliant future ahead of him if he just made it two more years through high school."
"The data shows that it is a very real threat," Mirion warned.
The researchers used data from the CDC and Prevention's Underlying Cause of Death database which revealed the suicide rate was 12.5 per 100,000 people in 2000 and then rose to 17 per 100,000 in 2017.
The research did not examine some of the reasons for the rise in suicide rates.
"Future studies should examine possible contributing factors and attempt to develop prevention measures by understanding the causes for the decrease in suicides found in the late 1990s," the researchers wrote.
Previous studies have also found increased in suicide rates, but Nadine Kaslow, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Emory University School of Medicine and chief psychologist at the Grady Health System in Atlanta, said the new report "adds a couple of points; one is noting this particular increase in young males and also in this younger age group of 15 to 19."
"There have been a number of things that people have talked about lately. One is just sort of increasing rates of psychological pain or psychological distress in young people -- more anxiety and more depression -- and I think that's for a number of reasons," Kaslow said.
To get help if you are feeling depressed or suicidal: call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). For crisis support in Spanish, call 1-888-628-9454.
-WN.com, Maureen Foody
Photo:
AP / Eric Risberg
