"We know that certain societal rules and expectations for women can be associated with higher rates of mental health issues and suicide rates," said Dr.
The role of societal rules and expectations Yet social media may be just one piece of the puzzle. Girls who are depressed also elicit more negative responses from their friends on social media than boys, they added.Ĭombined, they say, these findings suggest that the negative effects of social media may be stronger on girls and may provide one explanation for why young girls are more vulnerable to suicidal thoughts and behaviors. "Compared with boys, girls use social media more frequently and are more likely to experience cyberbullying," Luby and Kertz wrote. Girls may be more vulnerable to the negative effects of social media Joan Luby, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Washington University School of Medicine, and Sarah Kertz, a clinical psychologist at Southern Illinois University, in a commentary published alongside the study in JAMA.īut given the short period of time over which the rates of suicide have spiked for young girls, Luby and Kertz point to social media as a likely contributor. The study was not designed to determine the reasons behind the troubling trends, explained Dr. Girls turning to more lethal means is cause for "great concern," explained lead author Donna Ruch, research scientist at Nationwide Children's Hospital, adding that girls continue to attempt suicide at higher rates and the shift toward more lethal methods could have dire consequences for the rates of completed suicide in this group. Rates of suicide have historically been higher in boys than in girls across all age groups. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in kids and teens ages 10 to 19 in the United States after accidents and unintentional injuries, according to the CDC. A similar trend was seen for teens 15 to 19, with rates of suicide going up 7.9% for girls and 3.5% for boys.īoys 15 to 19 continued to take their own lives using firearms at far greater rates than girls, but the rates of hanging and suffocation in girls approached those of boys. Starting in 2007, the rates of suicide for girls 10 to 14 increased 12.7% per year, compared with 7.1% for boys the same age.
The rates of suicide peaked in 1993 and had been on the decline until 2007, when they again started to climb, according to the findings, published Friday in JAMA.Īlthough boys were 3.8 times more likely than girls to kill themselves over the 40-year study period, the gap is rapidly narrowing. In that period, there were more than 85,000 suicides in kids and teens, with 80% in boys and 20% in girls. Researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital in in Columbus, Ohio analyzed suicide rates of US kids and teens ages 10 to 19 between 19 using the Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research database, run by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Suicide rates for young girls are rising at a pace faster than that of boys, changing the established patterns that boys are more likely to die by suicide and that girls are more likely to consider it and attempt it, according to a new study.
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