Study: Youth suicides on the rise

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 3 (UPI) -- The number of youth suicides in the United States has increased during the last few years despite predictions to the contrary, a new study says.

The study co-authored by Carnegie Mellon University Professor Joel B. Greenhouse says while youth suicide rates had been predicted to follow a declining trend going into 2004, the actual number of youth suicides increased in what cannot be seen as a "statistical fluke," the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review said Wednesday.

"Here we're talking about lives. Last year the federal government's response to the jump was, 'Let's be cautious ... this could be just a statistical fluke.' Now we have two years of data, and it's hard to argue that this is a statistical fluke," the statistician at the Pittsburgh school said.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, argues that while the suicide youth rate decreased by 5 percent in 2005, that decrease does not discount the 18 percent increase seen between 2003 and 2004.

Greenhouse and co-author, epidemiologist Jeffrey A. Bridge, suggest that the 2005 decrease should have been more dramatic if the 2003-04 increase was a statistical anomaly, the Tribune-Review reported.