Suicide rates are rising in girls – with the highest rise among ages 10-14

I guess I should warn you ahead of time, but this entry has some absolutely brutal statistics. For those who may be disturbed by such content, please note that the following blog entry will review information on suicide, including methods.

A new study which appeared in JAMA examined whether or not the gap between suicide in boys and girls was narrowing. Broadly speaking, while women are more likely to attempt suicide, men are more likely to complete it. This is for a variety of reasons, but the most obvious one is that men typically use more violent means to commit suicide, and are thus less likely to be saved by medical professionals.

The results of the JAMA study were disturbing. It examined 85,051 suicides of children and teenagers, ages 10-19, between 1975 and 2016. The most painful result:

Following a downward trend until 2007, suicide rates for female youth showed the largest significant percentage increase compared with male youth (12.7% vs 7.1% for individuals aged 10-14 years

From the conclusion of the study:

A significant reduction in the historically large gap in youth suicide rates between male and female individuals underscores the importance of interventions that consider unique differences by sex. Future research examining sex-specific factors associated with youth suicide is warranted.

Further examination of the data reveals that the rate at which women were using hanging and suffocation for suicide were approaching the same rates as men. In other words, girls are starting to use more lethal means to kill themselves, a highly disturbing trend, and one that will lead to additional deaths.

A key and tragic consideration to keep in mind when it comes to suicides is that, for every death by suicide, there are an estimated 25 attempts. A rise in use of more lethal means of suicides means that more suicide attempts will result in death.

To put the above statistic another way: If every suicide attempt led to a death, we’d lose approximately 1,175,000 people every year.

Unfortunately, none of this information is all that surprising, though it is deeply disturbing to know that more 10 year olds are killing themselves at accelerating rates. A study which came out last months showed that the number of children going to the emergency room doubled between 2007-2015. Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death of 15-34 year olds in America, and rates of mental illness are rising among young adults faster than any other age group.

Clearly, our young people are under more pressure than ever before, and clearly, we are failing them if we don’t do a better of job of addressing this crisis.

Back to the study above. One of the things I’d like to focus on – at least when it comes to trying to reduce this gap – is means reduction. If young girls are starting to use more violent means for suicide, we must do a better job of determining why, and what, if anything, we can do about it. There are public policy options when it comes to guns, but I’m not sure what you can do, if anything, when it comes to suffocation or hanging.

We have to do something. The only way to guarantee failure is not try anything.