A record number of children and teenagers killed themselves last year in Japan, it was reported Friday.
Some 886 children and teenagers committed suicide last year, said the National Police Agency in Japan.
In 2006, the total number of suicides for all ages dropped 397 from the previous year to 32,155, but still topped 30,000 for the ninth straight year, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.
The number of suicides by people 19 or younger increased by 2.5 percent to 623, including 14 elementary school students, an increase of seven over the previous year; 81 junior high school students, an increase of 15, and 220 high school students, an increase of five.
Given the sharp rise in school-related issues as motives for suicides, the police agency has listed "bullying" as an additional motive, Yomiuri Shimbun reported.
Copyright 2007 by United Press International
Related stories:
Suicide risks studied in drugs for physical ills
(AP) -- Cody Miller was a high school football player who was allergic to ragweed. Douglas Briggs was a doctor coping with pain from an old back injury. Both are now dead, hanging victims driven to suicide, their families believe, when drugs prescribed to relieve physical symptoms upset their mental and emotional balance. Federal drug regulators are investigating to see if the families could be right.
Not quite a teen, not fully an adult
(PhysOrg.com) -- Fueled by hormone fluctuations, the teenage years can be a time of huge emotional upheaval. But, as an initiative by MIT's Young Adult Development Project finds, the roller coaster may not end at the 18th birthday.
Bangladesh university offers counselling for 'betrayed' lovers
Bangladesh's biggest university will appoint psychiatrists for students to counter a growing number of suicides by "betrayed" lovers, its acting chief said Monday.
Racial disparities reduced in injury related mortality
When it comes to injury-related deaths, the gap between black and white American youths is narrowing, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study found that between 1999 and 2005 injury-related deaths among blacks ages 15 to 24 decreased, while injury-related deaths among whites increased. The findings are published in the June, 2008, edition of
Injury Prevention.
Young black men are at higher risk of suicide than their white counterparts
A study examining suicide rates and pre-suicide clinical symptoms in people from different ethnic groups, has found that rates of suicide vary between ethnic groups with young black men aged 13 to 24 at highest risk.
Young archaeologists dig up a mystery
A group of teenagers taking part in a Cambridge University archaeological dig have unexpectedly unearthed the mysterious remains of a woman who could be more than 1,000 years old.
Guns in homes strongly associated with higher rates of suicide
In the first nationally representative study to examine the relationship between survey measures of household firearm ownership and state level rates of suicide in the U.S., researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found that suicide rates among children, women and men of all ages are higher in states where more households have guns. The study appears in the April 2007 issue of
The Journal of Trauma.
Study: Teen suicide spike was no fluke
A troubling study in the September 3rd
Journal of the American Medical Association raises new concerns about kids committing suicide in this country. After a one year spike in the number of suicides, doctors were hoping to see more normal numbers in the latest study, but they didn't. The number of kids committing suicide in the U.S. remains higher than expected, and that has doctors and parents looking for answers.