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Suicide Rates Among Young People in U.S. Continue to Rise: Study

They are now the highest they’ve been since 2000.

Suicide rates for Americans ages 15 to 24 are now the highest they’ve been since 2000, according to a new study. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s database, researchers from Harvard Medical School showed that the suicide rate of eight per 100,000 individuals in 2000 had risen to 11.8 per 100,000 individuals in 2017. Boys were more prone to suicide than girls, with 15- to 19-year-old boys having the highest suicide rates with an overall annual increase of 14.2 percent. In 2017, of the 6,241 suicides that occurred, 5,016 were male and 1,225 were female. Researchers from Tel Aviv University pointed out that the study relied on death certificates in which the cause of death may have been reported incorrectly. The findings were published as a research letter in medical journal JAMA.