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Fewer children in California are dying by suicide since the pandemic, as thoughts of suicide and suicidal attempts have declined among young people nationwide.
In an annual report released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, survey data from across the country show that serious suicidal thoughts in 12- to 17-year-olds in the U.S. fell from nearly 13% in 2021 to 10% in 2024.
But about two-fifths of the 2.6 million adolescents who had serious thoughts of suicide in the past year also made a suicide plan or attempted suicide — a number that experts warn is nowhere near resolving the youth suicide and mental health crisis.
In 2023, the number of young people in California age 15 to 24 who died by suicide declined 8% since a historic peak in 2021, according to the most recent data from the state’s Department of Public Health. In comparison, the U.S. reported an 11% decline in youth suicides in the same period.
“Suicide is complex, and there’s no one reason behind it,” said Stephanie Murray, a school psychologist in the Whittier Union High School District in Los Angeles County.
Suicide can be influenced by a combination of factors, such as unhealthy social media use or bullying, and can be exacerbated by certain risk factors, such as access to substances and weapons, Murray said.
The annual survey, which interviews over 70,000 people age 12 years and older in the U.S., was the first to be released since the Trump administration fired the entire team of scientists in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services responsible for the report.
How California compares
California has lower rates of youth suicide compared to the rest of the country. But between 2019 and 2021, it was the second-leading cause of death for young people age 10 to 25 years old in the state.
A UCLA report found that nearly a quarter of California adolescents, age 15 to 17, reported having had suicidal thoughts in their lifetime, and more than a third had attempted suicide. For young adults age 18 to 24, more than 30% reported having had suicidal thoughts in their lifetime, of whom nearly a third had also attempted suicide.
Like the rest of the country, suicide rates in the state peaked during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, largely due to social isolation, school closures, disrupted access to mental health care and Covid-related grief among children and adolescents.
For Theresa Stevens, administrator for the Riverside County Wellness Collaborative at the Riverside County Office of Education, part of the job as a school-based mental health provider is tackling misconceptions around mental health so that more students seek help before a crisis.
“Through our efforts with building care teams, having wellness centers and having wellness coaches in schools, we’re trying to destigmatize mental health,” Stevens said.
According to a report by The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth, more than 1 in 3 LGBTQ youth in California seriously considered suicide last year, of whom 1 in 9 attempted it. For transgender and nonbinary youth, nearly 4 in 10 had considered suicide, of whom 3 in 20 had attempted suicide.
High school surveillance data indicate that suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, especially for Black and Hispanic youth, dropped between 2021 and 2023. For example, in California, Black students’ suicide attempts fell from 14% in 2021 to 10% in 2023, while the number of Hispanic students seriously considering suicide decreased from 22% to 18%.
In California, Indigenous youth represent the highest rate of youth deaths by suicide, and by a large margin. By 2023, deaths by suicide among American Indian and Alaska Native youth increased to 27 per 100,000 — the highest in a decade and a sharp increase of nearly 50% from 2018 to 2020.
The second-highest rate of youth suicide in the state was among Black youth, who reported a 28% increase during the pandemic. Black adolescents also died by suicide at more than twice the rate in 2023 than in 2014, increasing from six per 100,000 to 13 per 100,000.
Prevention and outreach
In recent years, the state of California has significantly expanded youth suicide prevention programs and outreach. In September 2023, the state committed $16.3 million to community-based and tribal organizations focused on preventing youth suicide. And in March 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced “Never a Bother,” an outreach campaign focused on supporting populations at highest risk, including Black, Native American, Hispanic and LGBTQ youth.
Most recently, Newsom instructed state agencies to find ways to address the mental health crisis among boys and young men in California, who represent the vast majority of youth suicides in the state.
Murray said that after the pandemic, the Whittier Union High School District started surveying students twice a year to identify programs that can help those who may feel isolated or need additional support. In every survey conducted since, the number of students feeling connected to their school communities has continued to increase, she said.
“Connectedness is one of the biggest protective factors against suicide,” Murray said. “If you have more students that feel connected to trusted adults, that’s going to mean they feel more supported and possibly less likely to either have thoughts (of suicide) or act on those thoughts.”
Stevens said improvements in student mental health can also be attributed to better family engagement, which is known to lower the risk of suicide in youth.
“Schools are integrating family feedback [into mental health support], and families are part of different committees in schools,” Stevens said. “I think that really helps bridge the support from school to home and home to school.”
Due to factors such as cultural stigma around mental health, paired with a lack of culturally competent and affordable services, Black, Indigenous and Hispanic youth are much less likely to receive mental health support for suicidal ideation, according to Mental Health America and the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Research shows that mental health clinicians are also less likely to recognize suicidal thoughts and behavior in children and adolescents of color.
“Indigenous and Black youth experience a combination of historical trauma, structural racism and systemic barriers to mental health care,” said Leslie Adams, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University. “For Black youth, there is chronic and persistent exposure to racism, and inequities in care may provide barriers to care during times of crisis.”
Murray pointed out that many students who are at higher risk of dying by suicide are also at higher risk of being disproportionately punished or disciplined in school. She said schools need to continue to improve on “culturally responsible” suicide prevention practices, such as referring students to more intensive behavioral health services when needed, or better identifying special education needs, in lieu of discipline.
“As kids became more isolated during the pandemic, I think that some of our marginalized communities had even less access to support and resources — and the impact was more pronounced,” she said.
Access to support
While the percentage of teens with an episode of major depression in the U.S. fell from 21% to 15%, only about two-thirds received treatment, according to the federal report. In California, of the nearly 300,000 youths diagnosed with depression, only a third received treatment, according to the latest public data.
Research shows that access to timely and long-term mental health care can lead to reduced suicide rates in young people. But whether a student receives enough support to recover from suicidal ideation can also depend on their access to meaningful care, which experts say means several and ongoing visits with a licensed mental health provider, rather than a one-time intervention.
“Around one in five children have diagnosed mental health needs, and so we want to give them access [to services] where they’re at — and that’s in schools,” Stevens said.
In the U.S., students who may need support for depression, anxiety or suicidal ideation are most likely to access services through school, rather than through primary care or child welfare services.
While more than half of all children in the state are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, most youths at higher risk of suicidal ideation do not utilize the behavioral health services covered by their plans. As California schools expand school-based clinical services that can be reimbursed by Medi-Cal — while also preparing for President Donald Trump’s cuts to Medicaid — Stevens said her focus is to make resources easier to navigate for students and families.
“[Students and families] sometimes don’t know to ask the schools for help,” Stevens said, “and better communication helps their understanding around what resources are available for them.”
There is no way to predict if a child may be considering suicide, Murray said. But families and schools can watch out for common warning signs, such as sudden changes to behavior or personality, or direct and indirect threats of suicide, and not be afraid to directly ask about possible thoughts of suicide.
“The important thing is to not be judgmental in the way that you talk about suicide,” Murray said. “All that does is close the door to communication.”
Despite recent declines, rates of suicide in young people are overall higher than they were over a decade ago.
“Any decrease in youth suicide is a win,” Murray said. “Our work is not done. We have to continue to strive for less and less.”