Middle school suicides in U.S. reach all-time high
By Elissa Nadworny, NPR
There’s a perception that children don’t kill themselves, but that’s just not true. A report shows that, for the first time, suicide rates for U.S. middle school students have surpassed the rate of death by car crashes.
The suicide rate among youngsters ages 10 to 14 has been steadily rising, and doubled in the U.S. from 2007 to 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2014, 425 young people 10 to 14 years of age died by suicide.
“Kids spend a lot of time at school … it’s where they live their lives,” says David Jobes, who heads the Suicide Prevention Lab at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. “Suicide prevention has been focused on schools for a long time because it’s a place where kids are and where a lot of problems can manifest.”
