Fifty years ago suicide among young people aged 15–24 was a relatively infrequent event and suicides in this age group constituted less than 5% of all suicides in the United States. As can be seen in Figure 21.1, between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, the rate of suicide rose markedly among this age group. This increase was observed most dramatically among young males, whose suicide rates more than tripled between 1955 and 1977 (from 6.3 per 100,000 to 21.3). Among females ages 15–24, the suicide rate more than doubled during this same period (from 2.0 per 100,000 to 5.2). By 1980, suicides by 15-to 24-year-olds constituted almost 17% of the approximately 30,000 suicides in the United States (National Center for Health Statistics, n.d.).

Rising suicide rates continued, albeit at a slower pace, during the 1980s and early 1990s, reaching a peak rate of 13.6 suicides per 100,000 youth aged 15–24 in 1994. At that point, rates began to steadily decline, decreasing to 9.9 per 100,000 by 2002 (the last year for which national data are currently available), a drop of over 27% (National Center for Health Statistics, n.d.).

Figures available since 1970 (also depicted in Fig. 21.1) show that among the younger subset of youth, those aged 15–19, the suicide rate rose relatively consistently up until 1990 (from 5.9 per 100,000 to 11.1), and has dropped considerably since that time to 7.4 suicides per 100,000 population in 2002. Even with these declines, the overall youth suicide rate remains more than twice what it had been before the marked rise began, and currently constitutes almost 13% of all U.S. suicides (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] n.d.a).

Suicide before the age of 12 is rare, but increases with every year past puberty (CDC, n.d.a). In 2002, youth aged 20–24 had a suicide rate of 12.3 per 100,000, compared to the rate of 7.4 among adolescents aged 15–19. A total of 4,010 young people aged 15–24 died by suicide during that one year, 1,513 between the ages of 15–19, and 2,497 between the ages of 20–24. Currently in the United States suicide is the third leading cause of death among youth; only accidents and homicide claim more young lives. Among college students specifically, suicide is the second leading cause of death, surpassed only by accidental injury.

How is one to explain the rise in the rate of youth suicide in the United States during the latter half of the last century? It has been suggested that the increase in the youth suicide rate paralleled an increase in the rate of depression since the 1950s. Documenting an increase in the rate of depression is not easy, however, since clinical studies undertaken prior to the 1980s did not use a standard definition of depression. In addition, such a dramatic rise in suicide in a relatively short time frame is likely to reflect some broad environmental change. Thus, medical and social scientists have sought other explanations (Berman & Jobes, 1995; Gould, Greenberg, Velting, & Shaffer, 2003; Hendin, 1978).

Increased availability of firearms as a contributing factor is suggested by increases in the rate of suicide by firearms among young people in the United States during the 1980s (Boyd & Moscicki, 1986; Brent, Perper, & Allman, 1987; Brent et al., 1991). Similar increases in youth suicide have been seen in countries such as New Zealand and in Europe, however, where firearms are not a common suicide method (World Health Organization, 2003).

The diminishing cohesion of the family observed since World War II has frequently been blamed for a wide range of youth problem behaviors, including both drug abuse and suicide. The psychosocial revolution that swept the Western world beginning in the 1960s, which embraced a greater freedom in sexual behavior, as well as changes in the expectations that young men and women had for themselves and for their relationships, is also thought to have contributed to youth suicide (Hendin, 1978, 1995). A marked and well-documented increase in drug and alcohol exposure took place during that period (Johnston, O'Malley, & Bachman, 2002), and the relationship between substance abuse and suicide has been clearly established in a number of studies of both adults (Barraclough, Bunch, Nelson, & Sainsbury, 1974; Robins, Murphy, Wilkinson, Gassner, & Kayes, 1959) and youth (Marttunen, Aro, Henriksson, & Lonnqvist, 1991; Shaffer et al., 1996).

The question of why youth suicide rates have declined in recent years is equally important. Al