Suicide among teens and young adults is rising. But a new report shows that it was happening even before the Coronavirus Pandemic arrived.
New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a dramatic increase in the rate of suicide across the U.S. However, previous reports on this matter, like the Vital Signs edition from 2016, stopped short of evaluating the three year period including 2016, 2017, and 2018.
Between 2007 and 2017 the National Center for Health Statistics found that the suicide death rate among people ages 10-24 increased 57.4%. The newest report by the CDC extended that data-set another year. As a state, New York saw an increase of 43.9%, which left it in the middle of the pack – as far as the state-by-state breakdown was concerned.
Maryland had the lowest increase – at 21.7%, and New Hampshire saw the highest increase at 110%.
RELATED: Read the September 11, 2020 report from the CDC here
For more answers, we caught up with Margaret Morse. She’s the Director of Community Services in Seneca County. In her role, she oversees a number of community-based programs, including those in the mental health space. After the report’s publishing – we posed some of the most-frequently asked questions at her, to help better understand what is being done to reduce the rate of suicide overall; and to get her professional opinion on how the pandemic may impact these issues moving forward.
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Josh is the president and publisher of FingerLakes1.com. Have a question? Send them to [email protected].