CDC: Teen girls report violence, sadness, suicide risk

American teenage girls are experiencing record levels of sexual violence, sadness and suicide risk, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Monday, with 30 percent of those surveyed saying they seriously considered attempting suicide.

"Our teenage girls are suffering through an overwhelming wave of violence and trauma, and it's affecting their mental health," said Kathleen Ethier, director of the CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health.

Results from the CDC's 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey show that 3 in 5 teen girls (57 percent) in 2021 reported experiencing persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year, compared with 36 percent in 2011, the agency said. Thirty percent reported they seriously considered attempting suicide in 2021, up from 19 percent in 2011.

The survey didn't ask students about reasons for their feelings of sadness or thoughts of harming themselves.

"As a parent to a teenage girl, I am heartbroken. As a public health leader, I'm driven to act," the CDC's chief medical officer, Dr Debra Houry, said at a briefing Monday.

Kathleen Ethier, director of the CDC's Adolescent and School Health division, said, "Our teenage girls are suffering through an overwhelming wave of violence and trauma, and it's affecting their mental health."

The CDC survey, which has been conducted every other year for three decades, includes responses from 17,232 US high school students from across the country.

More than 40 percent of boys and girls said that they had felt so sad or hopeless within the past year that they were unable to do their regular activities, such as schoolwork or sports, for at least two weeks. When researchers looked at gender differences, girls were far more likely to report such feelings than boys.

The CDC found that 29 percent of high school boys reported experiences of persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2021 compared with 21 percent in 2011. Meanwhile, 14 percent of high school boys reported having seriously considered attempting suicide, up from 13 percent in 2011.

The CDC data is from a biennial survey from 2011 to 2021 of ninth- to 12th-graders across the country.

Among the teenagers surveyed, girls were more likely to experience sexual violence, the CDC found. Eighteen percent of girls in high school said they experienced sexual violence in the past year, compared with 15 percent in 2017, the first year the CDC began monitoring the trend. Fourteen percent of teenage girls reported being forced to have sex when they didn't want to, up from 12 percent in 2011, the CDC said.

"This is truly alarming," said Ethier. "For every 10 teenage girls you know, at least one of them, and probably more, has been raped."

The US needs to focus on programs that will prevent sexual violence, said Houry. "High school should be a time for trailblazing, not trauma," she said. "These data show our kids need far more support to cope, hope and thrive."

At least 52 percent of teenagers who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or questioning said they struggled with mental health. The CDC survey found that more than 1 in 5 such youth — 22 percent — had attempted suicide within the past year.

More than half of those students reported recently experiencing poor mental health and 22 percent reported attempted suicide the past year, the CDC said. The CDC also reported suicide attempts increased among black and white youth.

The survey also found that alcohol use continues to decline, with 23 percent of high school students saying they drank alcohol in the prior 30 days in 2021, compared with 39 percent in 2011.

Only 16 percent said they currently use marijuana, compared with 23 percent in 2011. About 12 percent said they had misused prescription opioids, down from 14 percent in 2019 and 2017, the first year opioid use was included in the report.

Agencies contributed to this story.