Child Suicides Double in a Decade

Child Suicides Double in a Decade

Note: this is part of the Youth Suicide Rise project.

The number of children who have killed themselves has more than doubled between 2007 and 2017.

According to CDC data, 838 minors killed themselves in 2007 while in 2017 the death toll rose to 1778 deaths.  We are getting close to a thousand additional deaths every single year when compared to 2007.

The decade that followed 2007 accounted for more than 4000 additional suicide deaths of children.

The doubling is true of child suicide rates as well: from 11 to 24 deaths per million persons under the age of 18 between 2007 and 2017 (the overall number of minors has been mostly decreasing since 2010).

These troubling statistics come from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control:

With the exception of a slight decrease in 2010, there has always been a year-to-year increase since 2007.

The doubling of child suicide rates is a far greater increase than the roughly 20% rise in adult suicide rates between 2007 and 2017.

While suicide rates for boys doubled, suicide rates for girls were closer to tripling than doubling.

Younger kids were impacted more than older kids and rates for females under 16 nearly tripled.

These stark facts reflect tragedies that ripple through families and communities in increasing numbers, a phenomenon that is so poorly understood that hardly any expert is willing to offer definite answers as to why youth suicide has been rising so steadily and significantly for a decade.

We will soon look at the available data in more detail.

Notes:

The data is accessible from the Fatal Injury Reports tool at the CDC website.

The latest available data is from 2017.  I will do an update once 2018 data is released.

The more than 4000 'additional' suicide deaths is based on the total of 13,494 child suicide deaths in 2007-2017 minus 11 times the 838 deaths in 2007.

As this is meant to be merely an overview, I do not include all the relevant data and computations.

A legitimate question is to what degree the CDC data can be trusted to accurately reflect reality.  At this point I have no reason to believe the CDC data differs greatly from reality and certainly no reason to think it differs so strongly that it would render the doubling of suicide among kids largely an illusion. 

I will revisit the issue once I finish posting analysis of the available data, as that may increase the chances of getting replies from both CDC and relevant experts regarding any possible problems with the CDC data collection process.

As to decisions made about the classification of deaths as suicides, which precedes data collection, I will argue later that this may indeed be a significant factor regarding younger adolescents -- but not so strong a factor as to invalidate massive increases in teen suicides.

Other legitimate issues include the possibility of the 2007 data being an anomaly that skews comparisons with the past -- we will examine this and other matters soon.