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TUESDAY, May 21, 2019 (HealthDay News) — There was a significant reduction in the gap between male and female rates of suicide among youth aged 10 to 19 years in the United States from 1975 through 2016, according to a study published online May 17 in JAMA Network Open<\/i>.<\/p>\n
In an effort to evaluate gender-based trends in suicide rates, Donna A. Ruch, Ph.D., from Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and colleagues examined data for 85,051 U.S. youth suicide deaths from 1975 through 2016.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that during the study period, 80.1 percent of deaths were among male youth, with a male-to-female incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 3.82. Suicide rates for female youth showed the largest significant percentage increase compared with male youth, following a downward trend until 2007 (12.7 versus 7.1 percent for ages 10 to 14 years; 7.9 versus 3.5 percent for ages 15 to 19 years). Across the study period, the male-to-female IRR decreased significantly for youth aged 10 to 14 years (3.14 to 1.80) and 15 to 19 years (4.15 to 3.31). This significant decline in the male-to-female IRR was seen for non-Hispanic white youth aged 10 to 14 years (3.27 to 2.04) and non-Hispanic youth of other races aged 15 to 19 years (4.02 to 2.35). For youth aged 15 to 19 years, the male-to-female IRR for suicide by firearms increased significantly, while the male-to-female IRR of suicide by hanging or suffocation decreased significantly for both age groups. There was no significant change in the male-to-female IRR of suicide by poisoning across the study period.<\/p>\n
“A significant reduction in the historically large gap in youth suicide rates between male and female individuals underscores the importance of interventions that consider unique differences by sex,” the authors write.<\/p>\n
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