Sadness | CC0 Credit
Sadness | CC0 Credit
Nearly 3 in 5 teenage girls in the U.S. feel persistently sad or hopeless, according to 2021 survey data recently released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – representing nearly a 60% jump over the last decade.
The CDC, in its 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey of U.S. high school students, found that teen girls are experiencing the highest levels of sexual violence, sadness and hopelessness ever reported.
Among the data, nearly 1 in 3 teen girls said they seriously considered attempting suicide in 2021 – a 60% increase from a decade ago. The report also found more than half of LGBTQ+ students had recently experienced poor mental health, and more than 1 in 5 had attempted suicide in 2021.
While these statistics are troubling, they come as no shock to Creighton University psychiatry faculty who have been closely following the rise of mental health issues among teens.
“It is very concerning, but it’s not surprising,” says Jo Ranga, MD, who is vice chair of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Creighton’s School of Medicine and director of Creighton’s psychiatry residency program and child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship program in Omaha. She has worked in the field for more than 20 years.
Original source can be found here.
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