Trendspotting: Surge in Teen Suicides?

NewsWire: 6/25/21

• ER visits for suspected suicide attempts among teen girls surged during the pandemic. New CDC data indicate the number turned upward in May 2020 and continued rising through early 2021. (The Washington Post)
• NH: The pandemic has been tough on teenagers' mental health. Last fall, we covered a CDC report that found teenage ER admission for mental health crises rose +31% YoY for most of 2020. (See “Soaring Youth Demand for Mental Health Care.”)
• New data show that this trend is continuing into 2021. According to the CDC, ER visits for teenage suicide attempts were up +39% this winter from the same period in 2019. Girls accounted for most of the rise. For boys, visits were up by +3.7%. For girls, they were up by +50.6%.

• So what’s going on? The pandemic has upended teenagers’ lives at a time when they are emotionally vulnerable. They have had to adjust to online learning, isolation from their friends, and the cancellation of most of their in-person events and celebrations. Depression and anxiety could be a plausible reaction. We have already learned from the earlier CDC surveys that girls were more likely to report greater distress.
• Another possibility is that the rise in ER visits is driven by more vigilant parents. Since lockdowns began, parents have spent more time with their children than ever before. Perhaps they are now more likely to notice subtle or worrisome shifts in their children's mood and are quicker to respond with medical intervention.
• It’s still unclear if the number of teens actually committing suicide is increasing as well. The 2020 cause-specific mortality data aren’t broken down by age, and the 2021 data won’t be available until next year. But we do know the death rate for those ages 15-24 rose (in deaths per 100,000) from 69.7 in 2019 to 83.2 in 2020. That’s a significant increase. 
• What's driving the increase? Provisional CDC data show that the death rate for this age bracket increased by +1.4 due to Covid-19. We also know that the top three causes of death among teenagers are accidents, suicides, and homicides. Among Americans of all ages, accidental deaths and homicides increased +11% and +31%, respectively, YoY in 2020. (See “Homicides Spiked in 2020.”) If those same increases hold for the 15-24 age bracket, that would add another +5.9 to the death rate. Now we are left with +7.6 not accounted for. Could part of this be due to more teen suicides?
• IMO, we just don't yet know. Suicides among Americans of all ages actually fell in 2020 (see “In 2020, Suicides Fell”). Contrary to popular impression, suicides and severe emotional dysfunction typically decline during episodes of sudden social catastrophe--like war, hurricanes, earthquakes, and so on. So I'm not yet entirely persuaded that teens, and teen girls especially, represent some atypical exception to this rule. The second explanation is still in the running--namely, that parents have lately been more sensitive to the emotional needs of their teen and young-adult children.
• Still, we do know that young people have registered the largest reported rise in emotional distress. And we do have a "gap" in the higher young mortality rate for 2020 that we cannot yet readily explain. We'll be sure to keep you updated once the CDC releases the missing numbers.