Commentary: Reducing adolescent suicide: a global imperative - a reflection on Glenn et al. (2020).

Abstract

Glenn and colleagues have examined rates of adolescent suicide across 45 countries and explored the role of sex, age, rurality and availability of guns and railways on suicide rates. Higher rates of adolescent suicide in New Zealand may be explained by the very high rate of adolescent suicide in young Maoris. Future work could be enhanced by reporting on national trends in suicide, reporting on rates broken down by race and ethnicity, and through the development of international psychological autopsy studies that could shed light on cross-country differences. While this article found that income inequality was correlated with the male-to-female ratio of adolescent suicide across countries, the opposite trend has been reported in the United States. However, as noted by this article, the effects of poverty matter. The Move To Opportunity study found that when youth under the age of 13 were moved from a high poverty to a low poverty neighbourhood, there were enduring effects, including lower levels of depression and anxiety. While adolescent suicide is a global concern, reduction in the suicide rate may have local solutions, including those that address the pernicious effects of poverty and poor neighbourhoods on youth.