U.S. Girls’ Suicides At Highest Rate In a Decade
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ATLANTA — The suicide rate among pre-teenage and teenage girls rose to its highest level in a decade, and hanging surpassed guns as the preferred method, federal health officials reported yesterday. The report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests a surprising reversal in recent trends.
The biggest jump — about 76% — was in the suicide rate for girls 10–14 between 2003 and 2004. There were 94 suicides in that age group in 2004, compared to 56 in 2003. That’s a rate of fewer than one a 100,000 population.
Suicide rates among all Americans between the ages of 10 and 24 fell 28% between 1990 and 2003. But in 2004, it shot back up, driven by increases among females 10–19 and males 15–19.
