Suicides Are Up Among Black Youths. Is Anyone Paying Attention?

Data on Black teen suicide confirm that the kids are not alright, and the research shows that not enough has been done to understand or confront the problem.Although suicide has become a leading cause of death for young Black people in the U.S. — and the rate is trending sharply upward — experts say Black people are underrepresented in research on mental health and suicide.While research on how and why young people commit suicide is still a relatively new discipline, information on suicides among youth of color, and solutions, are hard to find.What’s known is that the typical hallmarks of structural racism, ranging from living in an under-resourced community to a lack of healthcare, increase the risks that a Black teen will kill themselves, according to a report from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Gun Violence Solutions.Racism “is impacting Black youth at a structural level,” according to the report, which was released August 2023.Jocelyn Meza, a clinical psychologist and psychiatry professor at the University of California – Los Angeles, says it’s disturbing but not surprising that researchers aren’t paying attention to the role racism plays in the rising level of Black youth suicides.“We focus so much on symptom reduction...