New report tallies Oregon youth suicides

SALEM, Ore. (AP) – Most recent data show 38 Oregon residents 19 and under died by suicide in 2015.

The Statesman Journal reports the Oregon Health Authority’s 2016 Youth Intervention and Prevention Plan Annual Report says those 38 suicides accounted for 45 percent of the suicides reported among people 24 and younger.

The report says Oregon dropped from having the 12th-highest youth suicide rate in the nation to the 16th in 2015.

The report shows there were 695 hospitalizations of youth 24 and under in 2015 for self-inflicted injury/attempted suicide.

Nearly 17 percent of eighth-graders and 18 percent of 11th-graders statewide who took the Oregon Healthy Teens Survey in 2017 reported they had seriously considered suicide over the previous 12 months.