via BlackDoctor:
Suicide rates in the United States have traditionally been higher among whites than blacks across all age groups. However, a new study from researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and collaborators published report shows that racial disparities in suicide rates are age-related. Specifically, for the first time ever, suicide rates for black children aged 5-12 were roughly two times higher than those of similarly aged white children.
“Our findings provide further evidence of a significant age-related racial disparity in childhood suicide rates and rebut the long-held perception that suicide rates are uniformly higher in whites than blacks in the United States,” says Jeff Bridge, PhD, director of the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research and lead author of the publication. “The large age-related racial difference in suicide rates did not change during the study period, suggesting that this disparity is not explained by recent events such as the economic recession.”
For older children, the trend is different. For youth aged 13-17 years, suicide was roughly 50 percent lower in black children than in white children.
But with all that said, we have to ask ourselves, what is happening to our Black youth?
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