The Rise: Suicide Methods (Girls)

The Rise: Suicide Methods (Girls)

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

Summary: There have been no major shifts in suicide methods among girls during The Rise.   The theories of increasing access to guns or prescription drugs are not supported by the data as explanations of any substantial part of The Rise.

A chart of suicide methods does not indicate any major proportional shift since 2007:

We see that while there was both an absolute and proportional decrease in firearm suicides early in the millennium (similar to boys), since 2007 all the three major methods started to increase similarly.

To make sure we did not miss a major proportional shift in the data, let us look specifically at shares of suicide methods during The Rise:

Despite 'wave' trends in methods there was no clear shift during The Rise -- in fact the share of suicides by method was nearly the same in 2018 as it was in 2007.

There was a minor shift of suffocation deaths replacing poisoning deaths during the first half of The Rise, but this trend reversed itself during the second half of The Rise.

Firearms rates have fluctuated somewhat without a clear trend.

Due to the absence of any major shifts in shares of suicide methods it seems highly unlikely that increased access to firearms or to prescription drugs has caused a substantial part of The Rise.

Notes:

See the note at the end of the The Rise: Suicide Methods (Boys) post.