A study has discovered that the rate of of reported suicide attempts by African American teens has increased from 1991 to 2017.
Published in the medical journal Pediatrics, the study revealed that the rate of suicide attempts among African American teens went up even as the rate of suicide attempts by teens in other racial and ethnic groups went down.
According to the study, suicide is the second-leading cause of death for teens from all demographics, with accidents being the leading cause of death among young people. In 2017, suicide accounted for 2,200 deaths among teens aged 15 to 19.
The study involved examining data from 198,540 high school students from 1991 to 2017 from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Survey. it found that 1 in 5 high school students said they were thinking about suicide while 1 in 10 said they had a plan to carry it out.
The study pointed out that this was despite the "increased attention given to the creation of campaigns to reduce youth suicide in the United States over the last decade." The researchers discovered that there is an increased risk in reported suicide attempts among African American teens during the time period, particularly among boys.
The study said that the boys had an increase in injuries related to those attempts, which could mean that they were using more lethal methods when attempting suicide. An earlier research has shown that the suicide rate was two times higher in African American children ages 5 to 12 compared with white children.
Amy Green, director of research for The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, said: "Over time and particularly with black boys, we have seen this troubling trend in a couple other studies. The fact that we are seeing this, especially with younger ages, is concerning."
She added: "Because so much of this is newer, there isn't a lot of data about why, but some of the factors are stressors like discrimination and the experience people have with discrimination and microaggressions."
