Suicide Rate for Black Children Surges

Three months ago, I read a story in the NY Times with a chilling lede: the suicide rate among black children has nearly doubled since the early 1990s, while the rate for white children has declined.

The story haunted me, and when the Harper’s Index repeated the statistic it prompted me to track down the source. It turns out the study cited uses data from the Centers for Disease Control, data that is easily accessible via the web. So I created a chart to show the change over time. The data is spiky but the overall trend is clear and horrifying.

Here is a csv of the chart’s data drawn from the CDC Fatal Injury Reports, 1999 - 2013 and 1981 - 1998.