CDC: Suicide rate for children, teens drops
Thursday, June 10, 2004 Posted: 8:56 PM EDT (0056 GMT)
ATLANTA,
Georgia (AP) -- Suicide among American youngsters and teens fell about
25 percent in the last decade, reflecting a dramatic dropoff in gun
suicides, the government said Thursday.
In fact, hanging and
other forms of suffocation -- including use of belts, ropes or plastic
bags -- overtook self-inflicted shootings in the 1990s as the most
common method of suicide among 10- to 14-year-olds, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention said.
CDC researchers did not
immediately know why the overall rate dropped, but a specialist in
adolescent medicine said new safety measures for keeping guns out of
children's hands and greater acceptance of gays may have played
important roles.
Sexual orientation has been a factor in many
suicides among young males, said Dr. Charles Wibbelsman, chief of The
Teenage Clinic of Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco.
"There are
shows (concerning gays and lesbians) today that weren't on nine years
ago," said Wibbelsman, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics'
committee on adolescents. "It's been much more 'Out' and in that
respect, we've saved a lot more people's lives."
The suicide rate
for those ages 10 to 19 fell from 6.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 1992
to 4.6 per 100,000 in 2001, the CDC said. The number of suicides also
fell in that period, from 2,151 to 1,883.
The decrease in gun
suicides was most dramatic among children 10 to 14, dropping from 172
in 1992 to 90 in 2001. Among those 15 to 19, deaths from self-inflicted
shootings dropped from 1,251 to 838 during the same period, the CDC
said.
Trigger locks, lock boxes and other measures for keeping
guns out of youngsters' hands have become more common in recent years,
but CDC officials said they did not know whether that accounts for the
decrease in suicides.
The number of suicides by hanging or other forms of suffocation, meanwhile, rose among young people from 1992 to 2001.
Such
methods of suicides -- including use of belts, ropes or plastic bags --
rose from 96 to 163 in that period among youngsters 10 to 14.
Among teens ages 15 to 19, suicides by suffocation rose from 333 deaths to 551.
CDC
researchers said they were surprised by the switch in suicide methods
and said they first noticed the trend in the early 1990s. By the end of
the decade, suffocations had surpassed self-inflected shootings.
The
nation's suicide rate among all age groups also has dropped in recent
years, although it rose from 10.44 deaths per 100,000 in 2000 to 10.69
per 100,000 in 2001.
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