Social Analysis

The rise in suicide in young adults in the US correlates with the rise in all of the following: academic pressure related to college admissions, mood disorders/mental illness, substance abuse, and social media. Other factors which contribute to making people vulnerable to suicide are societal inequalities like discrimination and financial instability, stress, post-pandemic feelings of hopelessness and loneliness, and bullying. Youth suicide is a preventable tragedy which devastates individuals, families, and communities in the US, and therefore effective suicide prevention efforts need to be wide-ranging and readily available.

Suicide risk increases during puberty, and affects boys more than girls and statistics show that racial minorities are at greater risk: “According to a 2018 analysis of CDC suicide data, the rate of suicide among those younger than 13 is approximately two times higher for Black children compared with white children. And similar disproportionate rates in suicide risk among other populations of color, particularly Hispanic women, as well as LGBTQ people have been documented in recent years.” 

Locally, Boston Children’s Hospital conducted a study of their own hospital records and found: “During the two-year study period — spanning the first pandemic year and the year just prior — nearly 3,800 children ages 4 to 18 were admitted to the emergency department (ED) or inpatient units for mental health-related reasons. About 80 percent were adolescents ages 12 to 18.”

Suicide among young adults was already a problem before the Covid 19 pandemic, but the pandemic made it worse. Patricia Ibeziako MD, associate chief of clinical services in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Services at Boston Children’s Hospital explains “It has also exposed major deficiencies in our pediatric mental health care system and a growing crisis that isn’t going away. The increase in suicidal behavior among youth very much predates the pandemic,” she says. “The pandemic did not alter this trend — it simply amplified it.”