Florida School Toolkit for K-12 Educators to Prevent Suicide

THE UNIQUE NEEDS OF FLORIDA FOR YOUTH SUICIDE PREVENTION, INTERVENTION, AND POSTVENTION Incidence of Suicide Nationally Across Ages and for Florida Students Rates of suicide have steeply and steadily increased in the United States at a rate of 14.2 annually for every 100,000 Americans, which is the highest rate in 50 years (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 2020). In 2018, more than 48,000 Americans died by suicide, with more than 1 million attempts. Suicide is the tenth-leading cause of death for all Americans but the second-leading cause of death for those age 10–34. National data has been gleaned regarding youth suicidal behavior through the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), which gathers information about high school students’ behaviors and thoughts about suicide. The latest YRBSS national survey is from 2019, which reported that 18.8 percent of high school age youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past 12 months (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Florida also participated in the YRBSS survey and has released the 2019 data, which appears below. The 2019 Florida YRBSS survey of high school students found that nearly 16 percent of Florida high school students reported seriously considering suicide over the past 12 months (see Figure 1). The trends over the past 10 years show that rates of high school suicidal ideation, attempts, and deaths by suicide are on the rise. Specifically, the Florida YRBSS data shows suicidal ideation has increased by 5 percent from 2017 to 2019 (Florida Health, 2019), while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports the number of suicides has almost doubled between children and teens in the last decade (CDC, 2018). After reviewing the CDC data, it appears that, in Florida, on average, two children or teenagers per week die by suicide. More information on suicide statistics for Florida youth is available at floridahealth.gov /statistics-and-data/survey-data/Florida-youth -survey/youth-risk-behavior-survey/index.html . More on the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System The YRBSS offers the best national snapshot of high school students’ at-risk behavior. The survey includes bullying, physical fights, school safety, alcohol and drug abuse, carrying a weapon to school, and many other at-risk behaviors. It is critical that the selected Florida schools participate in the YRBSS from the CDC. Florida has participated in the YRBSS, including the cycle for 2017 data and just recently for the 2019 data. To obtain data, at least 60 percent of schools need to participate before the survey will report state- specific data. If enough schools don’t participate, Florida will lose out on critical data that can be used to better understand the scope of at-risk behavior and to implement prevention programs. 3