Study: Suicide rates for Black kids twice that of white children

A pediatric journal called JAMA Pediatrics has published a report that says suicide rates among African American children is about twice as high than among white kids, reports the Washington Post. The 2001-2015 data confirms a pattern first identified several years ago when researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio found that the rate of suicides for Black children ages 5 to 12 exceeded that of young whites. The results were seen in both boys and girls. Although suicide is rare among young children, the latest findings reinforce the need for better research into the racial disparities, lead author Jeffrey Bridge said Monday when the report was issued. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death for older children and adolescents in the United States. “We can’t assume any longer that suicide rates are uniformly higher in white individuals than Black,” said Bridge, an epidemiologist who directs the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research at a hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “There is this age-related disparity, and now we have to understand the underlying reasons. … Most of the previous research has largely concerned white suicide. So we don’t even know if the same risk and protective factors apply to Black youth.” Historically, suicide rates in the United States have been higher for whites than Blacks across all age groups. That remains the case for adolescents, ages 13 to 17, according to the new study. White teens continue to have a 50 percent higher rate of suicide than Black teens. Overall between 1999 and 2015, more than 1,300 children ages 5 to 12 took their own lives in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Those numbers translate into an average of one child 12 or younger dying by suicide every five days. The pace has actually accelerated in recent years, CDC statistics indicate