The new report shows that the prevalence of serious suicidal thoughts in 12-to-17-year-olds fell from nearly 13% in 2021 to 10% in 2024. And the prevalence of suicide attempts by teens also fell slightly — from 3.6% to 2.7%.
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The report also found that the share of teens with an episode of major depression in the past year fell during this time — from 21% to 15%. But only about 60% of teens with a recent episode of depression got treatment.
And 2.6 million teens still had thoughts of suicide in 2024, notes Hannah Wesolowski, chief of advocacy with the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
"That's 1 in 10 kids, which is still far too high in this country," she adds. "So we're making progress, but we're not making progress fast enough."
The report also found that 700,000 adolescents did attempt suicide in the past year.
Access to treatment is still very difficult for most families due to lack of providers, poor insurance coverage, high co-pays.
I would hypothesize that the suicide rate will continue to decline due to the heightened awareness of the negative impacts of smart phone social media addiction and the limiting of smart phones in schools.
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