New CDC Report Shines Light on Teen Suicide Trends
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A new report states that the number of attempted suicides by teens has dramatically increased in the last few years. The report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance - United States 2011, published last week in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report -- examined several teenage suicide trends. It found the attempted suicide rate increased from 6.3 percent of the nation’s high school population in 2009 to 7.8 percent in 2011. Additionally, the report finds that almost 16 percent of the nation’s high school students seriously considered attempting suicide in 2011, an increase from 13.8 percent just two years earlier. Compared to 2009 statistics, researchers say that American high school students are generally more depressed, with more than a quarter of students reporting that they felt “sad or hopeless almost every day” for two or more weeks in a row.