Youth suicide rate no fluke, CMU researcher says

A higher-than-expected rate of youth suicides might be part of anemerging, nationwide health crisis, according to research co-authored by a Carnegie Mellon University professor released today.

The rate of youth suicides declined for more than a decade beforespiking in 2004, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Controland Prevention. Although the rate dropped slightly from 2004 to2005, the most recent years for which statistics are available, itwas much higher than trends suggest it should have been, accordingto the research published in the Journal of the American MedicalAssociation.

"For 15 years you see something going down, and then all of asudden you see a jump, and that jump stays up, that jump is aconcern," said Joel B. Greenhouse, the Carnegie Mellon statisticianwho co-authored the study.

"Here we're talking about lives. Last year the federalgovernment's response to the jump was, 'Let's be cautious ... thiscould be just a statistical fluke.' Now we have two years of data,and it's hard to argue that this is a statistical fluke."

There were about nine suicides for every 200,000 American youthsin 2005, according to the study. Suicide is the third leading causeof death in adolescents and the second among college-age youths,according to Mental Health America, formerly known as the NationalMental Health Association.

The research adds to a growing list of reports that worry aboutan international rise in youth suicides. Several researches havenoted a spike happened just after the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration put messages on antidepressant packaging warning thedrugs might increase the risk of suicide for children and youngadults.

That was a motivation for the study, said Greenhouse and JeffreyA. Bridge, the study's principal investigator and an epidemiologistat the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital inColumbus, Ohio. The next step should be for more studies todetermine the cause of the rise, they said.

The two did a regression analysis of the suicide rates for U.S.children ages 10 to 19 from 1996 to 2005. This group's suicide ratejumped 18 percent between 2003 and 2004, the largest single-yearchange in 15 years, according to federal data analyzed in the study.

The rate decreased by about 5 percent for 2005. However, if the2004 spike was an anomaly, the 2005 decrease should have been moredramatic, about four times larger, according to the Bridge andGreenhouse study.

Bridge and Greenhouse give a few possible reasons for theincrease in youth suicides, including the influence of Internetsocial networks and suicides among older teens who are U.S.soldiers. Other researchers have pointed directly at the so-called"Black Box" warning labels on antidepressants, noting aninternational correlation between the drug warnings and the spike insuicides.

Several researchers and advocates agreed that more awareness andeducation is crucial. Declines in suicide rates are rare, and peopleneed to know that antidepressants are one of the few effectivemeasures for suicide prevention, said Dr. David Schaffer, anadolescent psychiatrist at Columbia University Medical Center in NewYork.

CONTACT Pittsburgh, which offers emotional support and crisisintervention services, is starting a suicide training preventionprogram this fall to teach people how to support those at risk.Since 2006, the group has designated a staff member to talk at localhigh schools and colleges about suicide and prevention, ExecutiveDirector Christy Stuber said.

Suicide statistics for 2006 are expected to be available by latefall, Schaffer said.