8 ms·

CDC Reports 51% Increase in Suicide Attempts Among Teenage Girls

50 points by hirundo 5y ago

counternotions 5y ago
Note Author bio, shows slant: > Brett Cooper is a professional actress and a Libertarian-Conservative writer. She’s an ambassador for PragerU and TurningPoint USA and content manager at Unwoke Narrative
- balancemayvary 5y ago
  This while we're getting news that the Delta strain is infecting fully vaccinated populations...while we're at full-steam-ahead towards July 4th...I would not be surprised if the lionshare of progress we've made towards ending this pandemic is nullified before September.
rossdavidh 5y ago
Actual CDC report: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7024e1.htm?s_cid=mm7024e1_w&ACSTrackingID=DM59196&ACSTrackingLabel=Suspected%20Suicide%20Attempts%20Increased%20for%20Adolescents%20and%20Young%20Adults%20During%20COVID-19_DM59196&deliveryName=DM59196 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7024e1.htm?s_cid=mm...
- forbiddenvoid 5y ago
  This report (the CDC report) is far more balanced than the dramatic 'article' linked, which uses other media sources to justify its position. The discussion section at the bottom is particularly interesting, because it summarizes several hypotheses that might explain the cause of this increase. Most interesting to me is the premise that it's possible that increased exposure to their children might be increasing parents' awareness of their children's behavior. Which makes it more interesting to me that more girls are brought to the hospital for suspected suicide attempts than boys.
  - rossdavidh 5y ago
    All true. I should point out, however, that there is also the chance of a larger-than-normal percentage of suicide attempts _not_ resulting in a trip to the hospital, out of paranoid fear of infection from covid-19 if you go there. I have no great ideas on how one would estimate any of these.
ArkanExplorer 5y ago
"In California, teenage sucide increased 24 percent, leading to 134 deaths in 2020. In contrast, only 23 California minors died of Covid-19." More teenagers died of lockdown, than died with COVID. Why havn't all restrictions across the land (including masks and endless testing) ceased immediately?
- aplummer 5y ago
  Well 1. because it’s only due to the masks and endless testing the Covid death count is so low 2. Without the masks and endless testing, young people would infect many many older people, creating even more deaths This isn’t a conspiracy. Doctors do want the least number of deaths in the community.
  - kansface 5y ago
    No, emphatically, no, our doctors and our health care institutions did not act to minimize deaths! See for example the distribution of vaccines which did not go to demographics in proportion to their risk. It is totally unimaginable to me that men would ever be prioritized over women even when they are 60% of the fatalities in the US with similar stats for long term hospitalization. I haven’t done the math, but that surely cost us thousands or possibly tens of thousands of lives. Instead, we get endless reports in the media about how the pandemic has been hard on women! I accept that it has been hard on women, but you know, it’s at been fatal to 50% more men! Could you imagine the reporting and response if the situation were reversed? It’s a similar story for distribution to other sub populations as well, and the same basic story over and over - health care in the us is subject to politics and the politics of the health care providers themselves, typically to the detriment of all of us.
    - Izkata 5y ago
      > No, emphatically, no, our doctors and our health care institutions did not act to minimize deaths! Some tried, but yeah, mostly it's been suppressed by politics: The MATH+ protocol would've cut the death rate to about 1/3 what it currently is, but it isn't well-known because of artificial controversy over some of the drugs it uses.
supergirl 5y ago
any theory why girls were more affected?
- ErrolMusk 5y ago
  facebook
- deep-root 5y ago
  Not a theory, but additional info: female teenage suicide is one-third the rate of male in US[1], but typically grows faster per year. [1] https://time.com/5590344/youth-suicide-rates/ https://time.com/5590344/youth-suicide-rates/ Edit: The Time article links to original JAMA
  - supergirl 5y ago
    I was thinking about this. it would explain the increase. but actually the CDC numbers show that absolute numbers are much higher for girls; although, it's only for this narrow study
    - pedrosorio 5y ago
      As people have mentioned elsewhere in the thread, suicide != suicide attempt. The former is higher in boys whereas the latter is higher in girls.
- float4 5y ago
  Suicide attempts have always been way more frequent among women/girls, whereas men/boys actually commit suicide more often. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide
  - supergirl 5y ago
    Yeah, I was thinking about this. probably the definition of "suicide attempt" is too broad then.
bassman9000 5y ago
Ban social media
- balancemayvary 5y ago
  Sounds pretty authoritarian...but still I cringe to see this downvoted. Perhaps "Educate about the dangers of social media, and promote health, responsible, reverent use, because the kids are gonna do it either way"...
  - bassman9000 5y ago
    Browse HN threads on any other topic like guns, tobacco, or energy/climate change, and read multitude of harsher, simplistic responses to what are really tough challenges. But watch the mellow language, the "nuanced response", the "it's a complicated problem" when it comes down to the holy cows. I think it's fair to say HN is pretty pro-regulation. Strongly regulate social media, or ban it altogether. It's literally killing people, ruining relationships, perverting elections. It's a net negative by objective metrics. No half assed hypocritical solutions.
- CharlesW 5y ago
  I understand the reaction to this maybe-slightly-over-simplistic statement, but there's definitely a conversation to be had about defanging at least the most the toxic effects of social media. Unfortunately we're still in the "gold rush" era of social media, societal health be damned.
  - balancemayvary 5y ago
    Perverse incentives, indeed.
- wait_a_minute 5y ago
  Why not expect parents to do their jobs? Don’t let teens use social media. Stop dictating what adults do though.
xwdv 5y ago
Browsing Tiktok for a while it will become obvious why teenage girls are trying to kill themselves off more.
- balancemayvary 5y ago
  I'd be inclined to agree with the narrative that "Social Media platforms promote toxic engagement, which has a causal link to increased suicide among youth"...but you went for the knee-jerk reaction angle and so you're doing more harm than good to the point you're trying to make.
- boublepop 5y ago
  We have tiktok in Northern Europe as well, but haven’t seen the same rise in suicide attempts.
nickthemagicman 5y ago
More people die of car accidents yearly than died of covid in the 80% of the population that is below 55 years old. The average death from covid is 80 years old with multiple comorbidities. We appear to be totally fine as a society to let kids kill themselves to save unhealthy old people. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths- https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-... https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/ https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/
hyfgfh 5y ago
its interesting that female numbers are way higher that the males. Looks like males usually chose a more lethal method [1] In Japan the suicide numbers has increased among women [2] 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide 2 - https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/02/24/national/social-issues/japan-women-suicide/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/02/24/national/social...
rossdavidh 5y ago
Creepy hypothesis on why it affected teenage girls way more than teenage boys: more girls are stuck at home with someone they desperately want to get away from. This would also explain why there was not a similar increase in 18-25 year old women.
- stuntkite 5y ago
  I’ve dealt with suicidal depression most of my life. Around 30 I survived a lethal attempt and afterwards put all of my resources and attention into mental health care / diagnosis. It was quite the slog and extremely expensive and much of it not covered by my very nice PPO. One of the most useful things for my issues (undiagnosed ADHD, PTSD, and ASD) was Dialectical Behavioral Therapy in a group setting. 90% of the people getting mental health care in the groups I was in were teen girls and young women. The only other men I ever saw were divorced dads trying to get visitation rights back so they could see their kids. From my experience working through that, but also just out in the world I’ve found that young men frequently take up extremely risky behaviors with a disregard for their safety to cope with similar internal turmoil. Obviously, some take the direct route. I’ve lost a couple friends to immeasurable despair. In the USA at least the mental health system is so fucking screwed. I’m not saying young women have it better, but the antiquated biases are very much present in clinicians, researchers, and really everyone else. Women are emotional, protect them... but also a huge amount of medical pros don’t believe a woman can be passing autistic. Men/boys just need to “walk it off”. Largely even seeking help for mental distress is seen as something weak people do. It’s abysmal. If a study doesn’t address those very real biases in our culture, I don’t know if you can draw a useful conclusion. Having talked to my nieces and nephews and some of their friends (aged 10-22ish, probably a sample set of 15 kids that I know) something that I know even from before the pandemic is that they are acutely aware of how fucked they are and that the world as it’s set up is just fucking them harder and seems pathologically geared to continue to do so. They don’t even have the words to articulate it how I have here, they internalize it and try to grok it from the inside out. They put a smile on and do their best to seem normal. We need to listen to the kids and their despair. It’s ridiculous to say that it’s just that they are upset about having to spend time with someone they don’t like. We are boiling and this is the first of many plagues. The boomers borrowed from the future and are willing to ride it till the wheels fall off.... The kids have the internet and very much know what the world has set up for them.

50 points by hirundo 5y ago

Note Author bio, shows slant: > Brett Cooper is a professional actress and a Libertarian-Conservative writer. She’s an ambassador for PragerU and TurningPoint USA and content manager at Unwoke Narrative

balancemayvary 5y ago
This while we're getting news that the Delta strain is infecting fully vaccinated populations...while we're at full-steam-ahead towards July 4th...I would not be surprised if the lionshare of progress we've made towards ending this pandemic is nullified before September.

rossdavidh 5y ago

Actual CDC report: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7024e1.htm?s_cid=mm7024e1_w&ACSTrackingID=DM59196&ACSTrackingLabel=Suspected%20Suicide%20Attempts%20Increased%20for%20Adolescents%20and%20Young%20Adults%20During%20COVID-19_DM59196&deliveryName=DM59196 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7024e1.htm?s_cid=mm...

forbiddenvoid 5y ago
This report (the CDC report) is far more balanced than the dramatic 'article' linked, which uses other media sources to justify its position. The discussion section at the bottom is particularly interesting, because it summarizes several hypotheses that might explain the cause of this increase. Most interesting to me is the premise that it's possible that increased exposure to their children might be increasing parents' awareness of their children's behavior. Which makes it more interesting to me that more girls are brought to the hospital for suspected suicide attempts than boys.
- rossdavidh 5y ago
  All true. I should point out, however, that there is also the chance of a larger-than-normal percentage of suicide attempts _not_ resulting in a trip to the hospital, out of paranoid fear of infection from covid-19 if you go there. I have no great ideas on how one would estimate any of these.

ArkanExplorer 5y ago

"In California, teenage sucide increased 24 percent, leading to 134 deaths in 2020. In contrast, only 23 California minors died of Covid-19." More teenagers died of lockdown, than died with COVID. Why havn't all restrictions across the land (including masks and endless testing) ceased immediately?

aplummer 5y ago
Well 1. because it’s only due to the masks and endless testing the Covid death count is so low 2. Without the masks and endless testing, young people would infect many many older people, creating even more deaths This isn’t a conspiracy. Doctors do want the least number of deaths in the community.
- kansface 5y ago
  No, emphatically, no, our doctors and our health care institutions did not act to minimize deaths! See for example the distribution of vaccines which did not go to demographics in proportion to their risk. It is totally unimaginable to me that men would ever be prioritized over women even when they are 60% of the fatalities in the US with similar stats for long term hospitalization. I haven’t done the math, but that surely cost us thousands or possibly tens of thousands of lives. Instead, we get endless reports in the media about how the pandemic has been hard on women! I accept that it has been hard on women, but you know, it’s at been fatal to 50% more men! Could you imagine the reporting and response if the situation were reversed? It’s a similar story for distribution to other sub populations as well, and the same basic story over and over - health care in the us is subject to politics and the politics of the health care providers themselves, typically to the detriment of all of us.
  - Izkata 5y ago
    > No, emphatically, no, our doctors and our health care institutions did not act to minimize deaths! Some tried, but yeah, mostly it's been suppressed by politics: The MATH+ protocol would've cut the death rate to about 1/3 what it currently is, but it isn't well-known because of artificial controversy over some of the drugs it uses.

supergirl 5y ago

any theory why girls were more affected?

ErrolMusk 5y ago
facebook
deep-root 5y ago
Not a theory, but additional info: female teenage suicide is one-third the rate of male in US[1], but typically grows faster per year. [1] https://time.com/5590344/youth-suicide-rates/ https://time.com/5590344/youth-suicide-rates/ Edit: The Time article links to original JAMA
- supergirl 5y ago
  I was thinking about this. it would explain the increase. but actually the CDC numbers show that absolute numbers are much higher for girls; although, it's only for this narrow study
  - pedrosorio 5y ago
    As people have mentioned elsewhere in the thread, suicide != suicide attempt. The former is higher in boys whereas the latter is higher in girls.
float4 5y ago
Suicide attempts have always been way more frequent among women/girls, whereas men/boys actually commit suicide more often. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide
- supergirl 5y ago
  Yeah, I was thinking about this. probably the definition of "suicide attempt" is too broad then.

bassman9000 5y ago

Ban social media

balancemayvary 5y ago
Sounds pretty authoritarian...but still I cringe to see this downvoted. Perhaps "Educate about the dangers of social media, and promote health, responsible, reverent use, because the kids are gonna do it either way"...
- bassman9000 5y ago
  Browse HN threads on any other topic like guns, tobacco, or energy/climate change, and read multitude of harsher, simplistic responses to what are really tough challenges. But watch the mellow language, the "nuanced response", the "it's a complicated problem" when it comes down to the holy cows. I think it's fair to say HN is pretty pro-regulation. Strongly regulate social media, or ban it altogether. It's literally killing people, ruining relationships, perverting elections. It's a net negative by objective metrics. No half assed hypocritical solutions.
CharlesW 5y ago
I understand the reaction to this maybe-slightly-over-simplistic statement, but there's definitely a conversation to be had about defanging at least the most the toxic effects of social media. Unfortunately we're still in the "gold rush" era of social media, societal health be damned.
- balancemayvary 5y ago
  Perverse incentives, indeed.
wait_a_minute 5y ago
Why not expect parents to do their jobs? Don’t let teens use social media. Stop dictating what adults do though.

xwdv 5y ago

Browsing Tiktok for a while it will become obvious why teenage girls are trying to kill themselves off more.

balancemayvary 5y ago
I'd be inclined to agree with the narrative that "Social Media platforms promote toxic engagement, which has a causal link to increased suicide among youth"...but you went for the knee-jerk reaction angle and so you're doing more harm than good to the point you're trying to make.
boublepop 5y ago
We have tiktok in Northern Europe as well, but haven’t seen the same rise in suicide attempts.

nickthemagicman 5y ago

More people die of car accidents yearly than died of covid in the 80% of the population that is below 55 years old. The average death from covid is 80 years old with multiple comorbidities. We appear to be totally fine as a society to let kids kill themselves to save unhealthy old people. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths- https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-... https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/ https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/

hyfgfh 5y ago

its interesting that female numbers are way higher that the males. Looks like males usually chose a more lethal method [1] In Japan the suicide numbers has increased among women [2] 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide 2 - https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/02/24/national/social-issues/japan-women-suicide/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/02/24/national/social...

rossdavidh 5y ago

Creepy hypothesis on why it affected teenage girls way more than teenage boys: more girls are stuck at home with someone they desperately want to get away from. This would also explain why there was not a similar increase in 18-25 year old women.

stuntkite 5y ago
I’ve dealt with suicidal depression most of my life. Around 30 I survived a lethal attempt and afterwards put all of my resources and attention into mental health care / diagnosis. It was quite the slog and extremely expensive and much of it not covered by my very nice PPO. One of the most useful things for my issues (undiagnosed ADHD, PTSD, and ASD) was Dialectical Behavioral Therapy in a group setting. 90% of the people getting mental health care in the groups I was in were teen girls and young women. The only other men I ever saw were divorced dads trying to get visitation rights back so they could see their kids. From my experience working through that, but also just out in the world I’ve found that young men frequently take up extremely risky behaviors with a disregard for their safety to cope with similar internal turmoil. Obviously, some take the direct route. I’ve lost a couple friends to immeasurable despair. In the USA at least the mental health system is so fucking screwed. I’m not saying young women have it better, but the antiquated biases are very much present in clinicians, researchers, and really everyone else. Women are emotional, protect them... but also a huge amount of medical pros don’t believe a woman can be passing autistic. Men/boys just need to “walk it off”. Largely even seeking help for mental distress is seen as something weak people do. It’s abysmal. If a study doesn’t address those very real biases in our culture, I don’t know if you can draw a useful conclusion. Having talked to my nieces and nephews and some of their friends (aged 10-22ish, probably a sample set of 15 kids that I know) something that I know even from before the pandemic is that they are acutely aware of how fucked they are and that the world as it’s set up is just fucking them harder and seems pathologically geared to continue to do so. They don’t even have the words to articulate it how I have here, they internalize it and try to grok it from the inside out. They put a smile on and do their best to seem normal. We need to listen to the kids and their despair. It’s ridiculous to say that it’s just that they are upset about having to spend time with someone they don’t like. We are boiling and this is the first of many plagues. The boomers borrowed from the future and are willing to ride it till the wheels fall off.... The kids have the internet and very much know what the world has set up for them.