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Teen Suicide

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Teen Suicide
04 November 2014

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Identification of the Issue
The term suicide is defined as the intentional taking of your own life, or by deliberate inaction, allowing your life to be taken (according to www.mentalhelp.net). The ways people commit suicide varies, but the act of suicide itself remains the same. Some people overdose on prescription pills, slit their wrists, shoot themselves the list goes on. In 2010, The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that suicide is the third leading cause of death for college aged youth and ages 12-18. Teenagers experience low self esteem issues as a result of peer pressure, bullying, love lost, stress and confusion within the family whether it is due to divorce, financial uncertainty, domestic abuse or substance abuse. And for these reasons teens may associate suicide with being the solution to their problem.

Causes for the Problem The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collected data in 2012 (most recent year for which data was obtained), 40,600 suicides were reported, making suicide the 10th leading cause of death for Americans. In that year someone in the United States died by suicide every 12.9 minutes. Shockingly, after cancer and heart disease, suicide accounts for more years of life lost than any other cause of death. Statistics also shows that males are twice more likely to commit suicide than females. As far as ethnicity rates, in 2012, white males were responsible for 65% of all suicides. Tesa Middlebrook, a young African American girl with a promising future decided that enough was enough. On Friday, March 2, 2012 at approximately 10:00am she hung herself at the school’s football stadium. The saddest part is that her body wasn’t discovered until eight hours after the start of the school day. And although the

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