Suicide rates are up … especially among young people and in communities of color … as are other tragedies experts call deaths of despair.
A report from the nonprofit Trust for America’s Health finds that between 2010 and 2021 the youth suicide rate soared enough to make suicide the main cause of increased mortality in this age group.
Brandon Reavis is one of the authors of the report:
"The youth suicide rate for Americans age 10-17 increased by more than 70 percent over the last 10 years."
Reavis says the report shows that American Indian … Alaska Native … and LGBTQ youth are most at risk for poor mental health and suicidal behaviors … as well as communities of color:
"We do see in terms of drug overdose rates the highest rates among the Black population, in terms of alcohol-induced deaths and suicide those are particular problems for American Indian and Alaska native populations."
In New Jersey though … he said the situation is not nearly as bad as in other parts of the country.
"New Jersey has one of the lowest alcoholic death rates in the country for 2021, half the national average, although the drug overdose rate is in line with the national average, there’s only a 1 percent increase in the overdose rate in New Jersey, which is substantially lower than the national increase of 14 percent, and the rate of death from suicide in New Jersey is half the national average."
Wendy Sefcik is chair of the NJ Youth Suicide Prevention Advisory Council … she occupies a public member position as someone who has lost a family member to suicide … her 16-year old son TJ … that was in 2010.
"I thought I saw a kid, a teenager who was starting to act out, and needed to be disciplined, when really he was crying out for help, but he wasn’t crying out for help the way I would have recognized, I didn’t know anything about suicide, I didn’t know it was something I needed to worry about.
Sefcik says it’s a myth that talking about suicide to kids plants the seed in their heads … and that people need to learn how to approach someone who may be struggling … whatever their age. The skill is called Q-P-R … question someone who may need help … persuade them to get help … and refer them to someone who can provide it.
"A big problem in this area is especially in New Jersey we’re resource rich but awareness poor, people don’t know where they can go for help."
She says the situation is especially acute among young Black men:
"We have to recognize that they’re hurting they’re asking for help but they may not be asking in a way that we understand so rather than penalizing bad behavior we do need to with these young men maybe we need to step back and learn how to have these conversations and find out about their internal struggles."
The Centers for Disease Control has done a Youth Risk Behavior Survey every year since 1991 to track the behaviors and experiences of high school students. Some risk factors have actually declined such as substance use … or remained stable … such as online bullying … but in recent years suicidal behavior has increased. Between 2009 and 2019, the survey found a significant rise in the number of high schoolers who reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, seriously considered attempting suicide, or had attempted suicide in the past year. Sefcik says this is consistent with what she has seen:
"We definitely have seen this increase with our Black youth and also we’ve seen an increase with our young women as far as attempts we’re still losing more young men to suicide by far than young women."
She says that is because young men will generally use more lethal means.
Sefcik says money from the federal government has come New Jersey’s way through a program designed to prevent suicide on college campuses.
"New Jersey is the recipient of Garrett Lee Smith funds to target youth suicide prevention to make sure that we are finding these communities where we can put more funding for the programs that are being initiated."
Smith, who was the son of a senator from Oregon, killed himself when he was 22.
Sefcik says this money is being used to fund programs that can be accessed online.
"Through the grant a website has been created Prevent Suicide NJ it provides resources it will have online trainings for parents for kids for clinicians."
Other programs … Sefcik says … help everyone learn what they can do to prevent suicide:
"There’s a program called the lifelines curriculum, lifelines training, and what that does is it really trains entire communities in youth suicide prevention so they really have been trying to get districts and school communities that do have a higher population of communities of color so we can make sure that those communities are receiving these trainings."
She said Newark is one of those districts.
NOTE: Janice Kirkel's report is part of WBGO's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion feature series made possible in part by a grant from The Fund for New Jersey.