Study: COVID-19 pandemic seriously undermined mental health of America's youth


02/15/2023

The epidemic has had the biggest negative impact on young people's mental health in the U.S.



Ecole polytechnique
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that in 2021, more than 40% of high school students occasionally felt depressed or hopeless to the point where they were unable to carry out their regular activities and academic work, and 22% of them had considered suicide.

Reports from the CDC's research on youth risk behaviors are published biennially. The most recent one uses information from the fall of 2021, when more than 17,000 high school students in the US were included in the survey.

Kathleen Ethier, Director of Child and School Health, claims that in 30 years of gathering such data, "we've never seen such scary outcomes." In 2011, a poll of high school students found that melancholy and hopelessness were reported by 28% of pupils; today, that percentage is 42%. In 2011 there were 13% who had made a particular suicide plan, and by 2021 there were 18% of them. Ten percent attempted suicide in 2021 compared to eight percent in 2008.

The CDC found that girls experienced the pandemic with particular difficulty. In high school, 30% of the female students had considered suicide and 10% had actually done it. In 2021 (within the 30 days before the poll), 29% of students reported mental health issues, with 41% of girls.

source: cdc.gov