Analysis Examines
Trends in Adolescent Mental Health and Substance Use
Concerns about
adolescent mental health have increased, particularly in light of gun
violence and the COVID-19 pandemic, and policy makers are responding to
expand access to care through telemedicine, a national 988 crisis line,
and potentially additional steps and resources in the gun-violence
legislation now pending in Congress.
A new KFF
brief draws upon the latest national data to explore what’s
known about mental health and substance use trends among adolescents.
Among the key conclusions:
- Suicide
remains the second leading cause of death among adolescents and has
increased since 2010, though the rate of growth has slowed in recent
years. Suicide rates remain highest among American Indian and Alaska
Native adolescents. They are also higher among male adolescents than
females, though female adolescents have higher rates of self-harm.
- Deaths
due to drug overdose among adolescents nearly doubled from 2019 (282
deaths) to 2020 (546 deaths), with the largest increases among males
and some communities of color.
- In
2021, many high-school students reported adverse experiences such as
emotional abuse (55%), parental job loss (29%), hunger (24%), and physical
abuse (11%). Reported emotional abuse was higher among female than
male students, and higher among lesbian, gay and bisexual students
than their heterosexual peers.
- The
share of adolescents experiencing anxiety and/or depression
increased by a third from 2016 (12%) to 2020 (16%).
The analysis is part of
KFF’s ongoing
work examining mental health and substance use issues, which
includes state-specific data on mental health and substance use for more
than 30
indicators and mental
health fact sheets for every state.
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