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Girls' suicide rises
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Girls' suicide rate rises in U.S.
Associated Press Thursday, 6 September 2007 / 10:54 p.m. ET

By GREG BLUESTEIN

ATLANTA — The suicide rate among pre-teen and teenage girls
in the United States rose to its highest level in 15 years, and
hanging surpassed guns as the preferred method, federal health
officials reported Thursday.

The report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
suggests a surprising reversal in recent trends.

The biggest jump — about 76 percent — was in the suicide rate
for girls ages 10-14 from 2003 to 2004. There were 94 suicides
in that age group in 2004, compared to 56 in 2003. That's a rate
of fewer than one per 100,000 population.

Suicide rates among all American young people, ages 10 to 24,
fell 28 per cent from 1990-2003. But in 2004 it shot back up,
driven largely by increases among females aged 10-19 and males
aged 15-19.

"In surveillance speak, this is a dramatic and huge increase,"
said Dr. Ileana Arias, director of the CDC's National Center for
Injury Prevention and Control.

Third leading cause of death

Overall, suicide was the third leading cause of death among young
Americans in 2004, accounting for 4,599 deaths. It is surpassed
by only car crashes and homicide, Arias said.

The study also documented a change in suicide method. In 1990,
guns accounted for more than half of all suicides among young
females. By 2004, though, death by hanging and suffocation
became the most common suicide method. It accounted for about
71 percent of all suicides in girls aged 10-14, 49 percent among
those aged 15-19 and 34 percent between 20-24.

"While we can't say (hanging) is a trend yet, we are confident
that's an unusually high number in 2004," said Dr. Keri Lubell, a CDC behavioral scientist who was one of the lead authors of study.

The study did not analyze why hanging has become the most
common suicide method, but scientists speculated it could be
the most accessible method.

"It is possible that hanging and suffocation is more easily available
than other methods, especially for these other groups," Arias said.

Depressed

The CDC is advising health officials to consider focusing suicide-
prevention programs on girls ages 10-19 and boys between 15-19
to reverse the trends. It also said the suicide methods suggest
that prevention measures focused solely on restricting access
to pills, weapons or other lethal means may have more limited
success.

Arias said the declining use of antidepressants could be a factor
in the spike. But she noted it's "not the only factor" that health
officials will be studying to explain the jump. Four years ago,
federal regulators warned that antidepressants seemed to raise
the risk of suicidal behavior among young people, so black box
warnings were put on the drug packaging.

"Suicide is a multidimensional and complex problem," she said.
"As much as we'd like to attribute suicide to a single source so
we can fix it, unfortunately we can't do that."

The study mentioned other factors that tend to increase the risk
of suicide, including history of mental illness, alcohol and drug use,
family dysfunction and relationship problems.

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/health/070906/x090621A.html