“US teen and young adult suicide rates are the highest on record”
This article in Vox magazine has been written by Brian Resnick, albeit mainly within a North American context. It begins:
“Here are some numbers we need to reckon with: the number of suicide deaths in people ages 15 to 24, over 36 years in the United States. …
As you can see in this chart, after a steep drop in the late 1990s, the number of suicide deaths among young people (as measured in deaths per 100,000 people) began climbing around 2010 before reaching a new high in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The trend even holds for even those aged 10-to-14; the CDC finds suicide rates tripled among this group over the decade.
Suicide rates lately have been increasing in all age groups in America, in almost every state. But the epidemic of youth suicide is particularly stymying, even for experts who study it.
There are plenty of hypotheses about what’s driving it floating around. They include the changing way teens interact with each other in digital spaces, economic stress and fallout from the 2008 recession, increasing social isolation, suicide contagion, and the fact that teens can more easily look up suicide methods online.
Two other enormous public health issues of our time are at play too. Children of opioid users appear to be more at risk for suicide. Same goes for young people who live in a house with a gun.
But the bottom line is that no one really knows why. That doesn’t mean more suicides can’t be prevented, however … ”
You can read more from here.
