Youth Suicides Increase During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The damage is undeniable

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

The COVID-19 pandemic response has had far-reaching impacts on many aspects of daily life, especially mental health. Recent data published in Pediatrics show a significant increase in observed youth suicides during the COVID-19 pandemic, equivalent to an estimated 212 excess deaths. The study found demographic subgroups including males, youth aged 5 to 12 and 18 to 24 years, non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native youth, Black youth, and youth who died by firearms experienced significantly more suicides than expected.

The impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on mental health has been widely discussed, with concerns about social isolation, financial strain, and access to mental health resources. This study provides insight into the potential consequences of these lockdowns on youth suicide rates. The increase in observed suicides during the pandemic is particularly heartbreaking, and the demographic subgroups that experienced significantly more suicides than expected warrant further attention.

These stats are added to a pantheon of terrible impacts of the lockdowns:

•  CDC reported four-fold increases in depression

• Three-fold increases in anxiety symptoms

• Doubling of suicidal ideation, particularly among young adults after the first few months of lockdowns

• AMA reports of drug overdoses and suicides - big increases.

• Domestic abuse and child abuse have been skyrocketing due to the isolation and specifically to the loss of jobs, particularly in the strictest lockdowns. 

• Given that many in-person schools have been closed, hundreds of thousands of abuse cases are never reported, since schools are the number one agency where abuse is noticed. 

• The unemployment “shock” from lockdowns, according to a new NBER study, will generate a 3% increase in mortality rate and a 0.5% drop in life expectancy over the next 15 years, disproportionately affecting African Americans and women. That translates into what they called a “staggering” 890,000 additional U.S. deaths from the lockdowns