Opinion: Blaming the pandemic for rising teen suicide rates won’t solve the problem
When looking at troubling nationwide mortality trends, such as the increase in suicide rates among young teenagers or the increase in the homicide rate among young adults, it can be easy to overemphasize the role of the pandemic.
Yes, the homicide rate for older teenagers and the suicide rate for adults in their early 20s rose alarmingly during the pandemic, but many of these troubling trends were in evidence before COVID-19.
Also, it’s true that the pandemic took a horrible toll on children — enough so that the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children’s Hospital Association have jointly declared a national state of emergency in children’s mental health. The nation needs to address this problem, and not just by deciding how to keep children in school during the next pandemic. Better mental health screening and treatment is required now, as are coordinated efforts to recognize and intervene when suicide is evidenced.
But the pandemic must not become a convenient scapegoat.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a new study examining suicide and homicide rates for those ages 10–24. The most troubling data from this is that the homicide rate among teenagers 15–19 jumped from 8.9 per 100,000 in 2019 to 12.8 in 2021.
But this mirrored trends in the overall population, which may mean the rate has since fallen. Crime analyst Jeff Asher wrote in The Atlantic earlier this month that he has seen a “sharp and broad decline in the nation’s murder rate” so far this year.
He has cataloged a 12% decline in murder in more than 90 large cities since this time in 2022, and he said such figures generally indicate similar trends nationwide. He provides no definitive answer for this. “Explaining the trend is much more difficult than describing it,” he wrote.
But suicide rates may be even harder to explain.
CDC figures reveal that the suicide rate among people ages 10–14 tripled from 0.9 per 1,000 to 2.9 from 2007 to 2018, then remained constant through 2021. The rate for those ages 15–19 grew the most from 2009 to 2017.
A CNN report said, “Earlier research has found that there has been a steady increase in the number of children who are seen in emergency rooms for suicidal thoughts, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, and nearly half don’t get the follow-up care they need.”
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These are the trends that deserve the nation’s alarm and attention. Whatever is causing this spike in suicide may have been exacerbated by the fear and isolation of a global pandemic, but its root causes preceded COVID-19.
As troubling as the rate among young people is, it isn’t confined to that age group. The CDC also has reported that the suicide rate among all ages grew by about 36% from 2001 to 2021, equaling more than 48,000 in 2021.
We wish governments nationwide were forming commissions to study the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and recommending more thoughtful policies for the future, even though such a thing would be fraught with danger for politicians. Instead, a group of 34 medical, policy, biodefense and advocacy professionals united recently to publish a 352-page book called, “Lessons from the Covid War.”
Their conclusions skewered people on both sides of the political aisle, and especially health officials for not anticipating the lack of public trust and planning ways to mitigate it. The lengthy shuttering of schools in favor of online learning in many parts of the country was particularly harmful.
But the rise in suicides, particularly among youth, is a problem larger than the pandemic.
The groups that have declared a state of emergency in children’s health present a list of 10 steps governments can take to address the problem. Most involve better funding for programs in schools, family services and telemedicine to help people in underserved communities.
Plenty of research exists linking social media use among adolescents to, as one study put it, “cyberbullying, online challenges, social comparison and imitation (that) may provoke and aggravate suicidal thoughts and behaviors …”
A decade-long study at BYU found that “teenage girls at age 13 who spent two to three hours daily on social media were at a higher risk for suicide as young adults.”
This may be only one aspect of the trend in suicides, but it is one that deserves much more attention than it is getting. Utah lawmakers recently passed a law that requires parental permission for minors to access social media. That law may prove ineffective, but its target is correct.
Reviewing the nation’s pandemic response is important, but responding to teen suicides is more so. The nation simply cannot continue to ignore the loss of so many in the rising generation.
