Why murders, suicides among teens, adults hit all-time high in lockdowns

Government researchers revealed in their new study Thursday that the murder rates among older teenagers hit a 25-year high during the COVID-19 lockdown period with suicide rates among those in their early 20s spiking to their highest in more than 50 years.

The data were analysed for youngsters from 10 to 24-year-olds from years 2001 to 2021 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr Steven Woolf, a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher who studies US death trends said: "The increase is alarming and reflects a mental health crisis among young people and a need for a number of policy changes."

According to the experts, there are different potential reasons for the spike, including increasing depression cases, lack of widespread mental health services and the number of firearms in US households.

"Picture a teenager sitting in their bedroom feeling desperate and making a decision, impulsively, to take their own life. If they have access to a gun, it's game over," Woolf said.

Estimates suggest that suicide and homicide were marked as the second and third leading causes of death among 10- to 24-year-olds, after accidental deaths that include crashes, falls, drownings and overdoses.

Other researchers found that guns are now the biggest killer of US children.

Woolf and other researchers while analysing the CDC data earlier this year noted dramatic increases in child and adolescent death rates overall at the beginning of the pandemic, and revealed suicide and homicide were the main factors.

The report also found that the suicide and homicide death rates remained far higher for older teenagers and young adults than they were for 10- to 14-year-olds.

According to CDC data, the homicide death rate jumped from 8.9 deaths per 100,000 teens aged 15 to 19 in 2019 to 12.3 in 2020. It rose to 12.8 deaths per 100,000 in 2021, the highest since 1997.

Suicide was found common in the younger and older age groups while homicide deaths were more common than suicide deaths among 15- to 19-year-olds.

Other CDC information noted that while large increases were seen in homicide rates for young Black and Hispanic people in the US, there were no significant increases for their white counterparts.

The suicide rates were already seeing an uptick but climbed at the beginning of the COVID.

Dr Madhukar Trivedi, a psychiatrist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, said the reasons may be hard to pinpoint, but that isolation during COVID-19 lockdowns could be a factor.

"There is a misperception that if you talk to young people about depression, they’ll get depressed. A don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy for depression is not effective," Trivedi said.

"The earlier we can identify the ones who need help, the better chance we’ll have at saving lives."