Public Health Surveillance of Youth Suicide Attempts: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Background Surveillance of youth suicide attempts presents many challenges. To assess common data sources that capture information about youth suicidal behavior, we compared counts of high school students who reported (a) a suicide attempt and (b) an injurious suicide attempt, requiring medical treatment in the previous twelve months, with counts of suicide deaths and intentional self‐injuries obtained from administrative data sources. Method Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), high school enrollments, and vital statistics were used to estimate the ratio of suicide attempts to suicide deaths among Kentucky high school students. YRBSS and enrollment data were used to estimate the number of Kentucky high school students who received medical treatment following a suicide attempt, which was compared with hospital and emergency department (ED) discharges for intentional self‐injury from administrative claim records. Results We estimated 943 students reporting a suicide attempt for every suicide death, a result that is higher than previous estimates for youth. Self‐reported suicide attempts resulting in medical treatment were 7.5 times higher than self‐injuries reported in claims records. Conclusion Future research should address concerns about undocumented cases of intentional self‐injury in administrative claims systems; patient encounters in nonhospital settings for injuries resulting from a suicide attempt; and validity of Youth Risk Behavior Survey questions on suicidal behavior.

Leveraging general risk surveillance to reduce suicide in early adolescents: Associations between suicidality, disordered eating, and other developmental risk factors

“…Confirming our primary hypothesis, the rates were lower than those found in previous research in high school students and middle adolescents (Forrest et al, 2017; Johnson et al, 2016), though still alarmingly high. The rate of suicidality in our sample was also slightly elevated in comparison with national rates (CDC, 2017), which is consistent with higher suicide‐related morbidity and mortality among youth in Kentucky as compared to the national average (Singleton et al, 2020). We empirically identified six latent classes that confirmed our secondary hypothesis: normative (55.7%), poor self ‐ image (19.0%), weight loss and fasting (9.9%), suicidality only (7.3%), poor self ‐ image and suicidality (3.9%), and severe DEB and suicidality (4.3%).…”

Comparison of Past Year Substance Use Estimates by Age, Sex, and Race/Ethnicity Between Two Representative Samples of the U.S. Adult Population

“…This analysis contributes to the well-documented discrepancies in reports of health and behavior outcomes using surveillance tools at the general population level (Borgo et al 2019 ; Hall et al 2012 ; Lewycka et al 2019 , January; Nelson et al 2003 ; Ryan et al 2012 ; Singleton et al 2019 ), and extends previous findings by documenting differences in estimates across demographic subgroups. Overall, we observed similar patterns of substance use prevalence by race/ethnicity, sex, and age between the NSDUH and NESARC surveys.…”

Políticas Públicas de Saúde para a Juventude - Estudo Bibliométrico e Agenda de Pesquisa com base na Web of Science

“…Com a Figura 2, os 4 grupos estão representados pelo cluster 1, que agrupou as palavras: "youth violence" (5 ocorrências, 18 links), "adolescen-ce" (5,8), "smoking" (5, 6), 'outcomes" (6,12), "alcohol" (6, 9), "community" (7,14), "impact" (8,17), "risk" (11,22), "public health" (20,41); em relação ao cluster 2, foram agrupados os termos "mental health" (5, 21), "mental-health" (5,19), "school" (5,14), "youth violence" (6,19), "united -estates" (7,18), "victimization" (7, 29), "violence" (9,31), "substance use" (11,31); o cluster 3 une as palavras "services" (6, 7), "care" (10,15), "children" (20, 50), "adolescents" (34, 73); e o cluster 4 agrega as palavras "obesity" (6,14), "prevention" (10, 32) e "prevalence" (11,22).…”

“…Em escolas públicas de Chicago, de acordo com Korpics et al 8 , houve aumento de exposição ao risco de suicídio em jovens, com predominância masculina; embora reconheçam a redução de indicadores relativos ao uso substâncias e a violência. Nesse ponto, Singleton et al 9 ressaltam a baixa notificação sobre comportamento suicida em jovens, seja pela negação do jovem ou despreparo dos profissionais na detecção dos casos.…”