Researchers have long tracked the mental health of America’s teen girls. They’ve found that depression has become more common over the past decade, and in 2015, the suicide rate among teenage girls hit a 40-year high.
More recently, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has shown that nearly 60% of U.S. teenage girls feel sad or hopeless—and in 2021, 30% said they had considered suicide in the prior year, up from 24% two years earlier, a new report finds. In addition, about 24% had made a suicide plan, 13% had attempted suicide, and 4% required medical care related to an attempt. Among boys, those percentages were about 14%, 12%, 7%, and 2%, respectively.
Suicidal thinking was more common among teens who did not identify as…
