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KIDS COUNT in Delaware

Teen mental health by risk factor in Delaware

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Why This Indicator Matters

Students were asked if they felt sad or hopeless for two or more weeks at a time in past 12 Months, if they had purposely hurt/cut themselves in the past 12 months, and if they had attempted suicide in the past 12 months. Data illustrate feelings of depression by different segments of the Delaware high school student population including sexual identity, race, incarceration of parents, disability status, and bullying victimization.

Of students who reported being bullied in the past year 19% reported attempting suicide, compared to 5% of students who reported not being bullied in the past year.

Children's mental health affects how they socialize, how they learn and how well they meet their potential. Mental health is important at ever stage in life. Certain kinds of stress in a child's environment can lead to mental health problems. Toxic stress in early childhood is caused by experiences such as extreme poverty, abuse and chronic or sever maternal depression, all of which can disrupt the developing brain, particularly when children lack supports to protect against these harmful experiences. So just like we have to limit the negative substances in our environments to avoid harm, we need to eliminate stressors in children's environments to avoid the toxic stress that will affect their mental health.
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Data Provided By

Data Source: Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Center for Drug and Health Studies, University of Delaware

Footnotes:

“S” = data are suppressed where number of incidences are at or below 30 to limit the disclosure of information about individual respondents and to reduce the number of estimates with unacceptable levels of statistical reliability.

Data last updated 11/2020