Teen girls seeing 'dramatic' rise in poor mental health - U.S. CDC
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[February 14, 2023]
By Nandhini Srinivasan
(Reuters) -Nearly three in five high school girls reported feeling sad
or hopeless in 2021, representing a 60% increase over the past decade,
and fared worse than boys of the same age across nearly all measures of
mental health, U.S. government data showed.
The data shows a "dramatic" rise in experiences of violence, poor mental
health and suicide risk in teens, especially in girls, the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control said on Monday.
"The levels of poor mental health and suicidal thoughts and behaviors
recorded by teenage girls are now higher than we have ever seen," said
CDC's Kathleen Ethier told reporters.
The current study did not examine the cause of the spike but the CDC
noted there was also a 20% increase in reports of sexual violence among
high school girls since 2017, when the agency started monitoring this
measure.
"CDC and many other researchers have looked at this and we know that
with sexual violence, it is associated with mental health issues,
substance use and also long-term health consequences," CDC's Debra Houry
said.
About 57% of the female students reported "persistent feelings of
sadness or hopelessness", up from 36% in 2011, according to the data.
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School buses line up outside Woodrow
Wilson Senior High School as students return to in-person classes in
Los Angeles, California, U.S., August 30, 2021. REUTERS/Mike Blake
For male students, the figure rose
to 29% from 21% during the same period.
There was improvement for adolescents in some areas, such as risky
sexual behavior, substance abuse and bullying, but mental health and
suicidal thoughts as well as experiences of violence worsened, the
data showed.
Overall, 42% of high school students felt so sad or hopeless almost
every day for at least two weeks in a row that they stopped their
usual activities.
The study found 22% of teens had considered attempting suicide in
the past year, of which female students accounted for more than
twice that of male students.
(Reporting by Nandhini Srinivasan in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini
Ganguli and Krishna Chandra Eluri)
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