What are the odds of a US teenager attempting suicide?
Evidence quality 4.75/5
Eight-dimension review score against the quality rubric . Each dimension scored 1–5.
- D1 Source grounding
- 5/5
- D2 Source authority
- 5/5
- D3 Arithmetic
- 4/5
- D4 Uncertainty
- 5/5
- D5 Scope
- 5/5
- D6 Prose
- 5/5
- D7 Perception honesty
- 4/5
- D8 Caveat completeness
- 5/5
Lifetime probability · lifetime, subgroup
1 in 5.6
18% lifetime chance
Most people underestimate this.
range 1 in 8.3 to 1 in 4.0
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≈ As likely as
Perceived
Most American parents dramatically underestimate how common suicide attempts are among teenagers. When the CDC reports that roughly one in ten high school students attempted suicide in the past year, the number lands as a shock — parents of teenagers tend to guess something closer to one in a hundred or one in several hundred, partly because attempts are far less visible than deaths and partly because teens who attempt rarely tell their parents. The cultural framing of teen suicide leans heavily on completed suicides (news stories, school assemblies after a death), which are about 25 times rarer than attempts in this age group. That asymmetry means the public mental model is anchored on the death rate (~7 per 100,000 for ages 15-19) rather than the attempt rate (~9,500 per 100,000), a gap of more than three orders of magnitude in the wrong direction.
Rough estimate: Most parents would guess far below 1 in 100 per year; the actual figure is roughly 1 in 10
Source: editorial intuition, not polled
Actual
~9.5% of HS students attempted suicide in the past year (2023)
US high school students, grades 9-12 (2023 YRBS)
Show derivation
The YRBS 2023 reports a 9.5% past-year attempt prevalence among HS students (grades 9-12). The NSDUH 2023 reports a 3.3% past-year attempt prevalence among all adolescents aged 12-17. The NSDUH figure is lower because it includes younger teens (12-13) with lower rates and uses a household interview rather than a school-based anonymous survey. For a cumulative "at least once during adolescence" estimate, naively compounding the NSDUH rate over 6 years (ages 12-17) yields 1 - (1 - 0.033)^6 = 0.183, but this overstates cumulative incidence because many teen attempters are repeat attempters across years — the same individuals appear in multiple annual cross-sections. Conversely, the NSDUH rate likely undercounts single-occasion attempters due to household-interview social desirability bias. The two biases partially offset. We use 0.18 (~1 in 6) as the central estimate for the probability that a US adolescent attempts suicide at least once between ages 12 and 17. The scope is subgroup_lifetime because this applies only to the adolescent window, not the full adult lifespan.
Caveats: The YRBS and NSDUH use different methodologies, populations, and definitions, wh…
The YRBS and NSDUH use different methodologies, populations, and definitions, which is why their headline numbers differ (9.5% vs 3.3%). Neither survey verifies self-reported attempts against medical records — some reported "attempts" may be better classified as non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), and some genuine attempts go unreported even on anonymous surveys. The cumulative adolescence figure (0.18) is an estimate, not a directly measured quantity; no US survey tracks the same cohort of adolescents longitudinally with annual attempt assessment, so the true cumulative incidence is uncertain. The 2023 YRBS showed modest improvement from the 2021 peak for several indicators — the percentage of students who seriously considered attempting suicide fell from 22% to 20%, and Black student attempt rates fell from 14% to 10% — but levels remain historically elevated compared to the 2009-2013 baseline. All figures are self-report and subject to recall bias, social desirability effects, and definitional ambiguity about what constitutes an "attempt."
Regional breakdown
The headline figure averages across very different populations. Here’s how the probability varies by geography or context:
| Region / context | Lifetime probability | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Female HS students | 1 in 7.7 |
Past-year attempt rate, YRBS 2023 |
| Male HS students | 1 in 17 |
Past-year attempt rate, YRBS 2023 |
| LGBQ+ HS students | 1 in 4.5 |
Past-year attempt rate, YRBS 2023 |
| Transgender HS students | 1 in 3.9 |
Past-year attempt rate, YRBS 2023 |
| Black HS students | 1 in 10 |
Past-year attempt rate, YRBS 2023; down from 14% in 2021 |
| Heterosexual HS students | 1 in 17 |
Past-year attempt rate, YRBS 2023 |
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If you or someone you know is in crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988, available 24/7. For LGBTQ+ youth, The Trevor Project offers dedicated support at 1-866-488-7386 or by texting START to 678-678.
About one in ten US high school students reported attempting suicide in the past year, according to the CDC’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. That is not a typo, and it is not a fringe estimate from an advocacy group. It comes from the largest, longest-running, federally administered survey of adolescent health risk behaviors in the country — roughly 20,000 students, anonymous questionnaires, probability sampling, conducted biennially since 1991.
The number shocks most adults, which is itself informative. Parents, teachers, and policymakers tend to anchor on suicide deaths among teenagers (about 7 per 100,000 per year for ages 15-19), which are tragic but comparatively rare. Attempts are roughly 25 times more common in this age group. The gap between the death rate that dominates the news cycle and the attempt rate that dominates the epidemiology is one of the largest perception gaps on this site.
What the surveys actually measure
The YRBS asks a simple question: “During the past 12 months, how many times did you actually attempt suicide?” In 2023, 9.5% of students answered at least once. A separate question about serious consideration (ideation) returned 20.4%, and 15.7% said they had made a plan. The cascade — ideation to plan to attempt — narrows at each step, but the funnel is wide at the top.
SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), a household-interview survey covering ages 12-17, reports a lower past-year attempt rate of 3.3% for 2023. The discrepancy is not a contradiction. The NSDUH includes younger adolescents (12-13) with lower attempt rates, uses a non-anonymous household interview format that suppresses disclosure of sensitive behaviors, and defines its population differently. Both are nationally representative. The YRBS figure is the better-established benchmark for high school students specifically; the NSDUH is more useful for the broader 12-17 age window.
The demographic gradients are steep
Female high school students attempt at roughly twice the rate of males (13% vs 6%), a ratio that has been stable across multiple YRBS cycles. The gender paradox of suicide — girls attempt more often, boys die more often — holds in adolescence as clearly as in adulthood, driven largely by differences in method lethality.
LGBQ+ students reported a 22% past-year attempt rate in the 2023 YRBS, compared to 6% for heterosexual students — nearly a fourfold disparity. Transgender students reported 25.9%. These numbers are not artifacts of small samples or methodological quirks; the YRBS added sexual identity questions in 2015 and the disparity has been consistent across every cycle since. The Trevor Project’s 2024 survey of over 18,000 LGBTQ+ youth aged 13-24 corroborates the pattern, reporting a 12% past-year attempt rate (lower than the YRBS figure partly because it includes young adults 18-24 with lower rates).
Black students showed a past-year attempt rate of 10% in 2023, down from 14% in 2021 — a meaningful decline, though still elevated relative to the 2013 baseline. The trajectory for Black youth has been one of the most concerning in the data, with rates rising sharply from 2013 through 2021 before the partial reversal.
What “attempt” means (and does not mean)
The YRBS does not verify self-reported attempts against emergency department records or clinical assessments. Some fraction of what students report as a suicide attempt would be classified by clinicians as non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) — the intent matters for clinical taxonomy, but both behaviors indicate serious distress. Conversely, some genuine attempts go unreported even on anonymous surveys. The net direction of these biases is debated, but the order of magnitude — roughly one in ten — is not seriously contested by the research community.
The cumulative picture
No US survey follows the same adolescents year over year to track how many ever attempt across the full teenage window. Compounding the NSDUH’s 3.3% annual rate across six years (ages 12-17) with an independence assumption yields roughly 18%, but many attempters are repeat attempters, and the independence assumption overstates cumulative incidence. The true “at least once during adolescence” figure is likely in the range of 12-25%, with 18% as a reasonable central estimate. That means something like one in six American teenagers will attempt suicide at least once before turning 18.
The comparison to completed suicide is instructive. The lifetime probability of dying by suicide for a US adult is about 1 in 121 (0.83%). The probability of attempting suicide during adolescence alone — a six-year window, not a full lifetime — is roughly 20 times higher. Attempts are the iceberg; deaths are the tip.
Trend context
The 2023 YRBS showed modest improvement from the 2021 survey on several indicators. Serious consideration of suicide fell from 22% to 20%, and the overall attempt rate held roughly flat (2021: 9.4%, 2023: 9.5%). For some subgroups — Black students, female students — specific indicators declined. These are genuinely encouraging movements, but they follow a decade of deterioration (the 2013 attempt rate was about 8%) and the current levels remain historically high. Whether the 2021-2023 stabilization represents a peak or a plateau is not yet clear.
Related tidbits
1 in 6 adolescents will attempt suicide during their teen years. The lifetime odds of dying in a mass shooting are 1 in 110,000. Schools run lockdown drills for the rare threat and miss the common one sitting in class.
About 1 in 6 US adolescents will attempt suicide during their teenage years. The lifetime odds of a US civilian dying in a terrorist attack are roughly 1 in 3,500,000. One gets security budgets; the other gets underfunded hotlines.
Claim ledger
Every number below is what each source reported, with the verbatim quote we relied on and how we arrived at our figure. Click any link to verify directly.
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[1] CDC MMWR Supplements (Ivey-Stephenson et al.) — Mental Health and Suicide Risk Among High School Students and Protective Factors — Youth Risk Behavior Survey, United States, 2023
Mental Health and Suicide Risk Among High School Students and Protective Factors — Youth Risk Behavior Survey, United States, 2023- Statistic
9.5% of US high school students attempted suicide in the past 12 months; 20.4% seriously considered it; 15.7% made a plan; female 13% vs male 6% attempted; LGBQ+ students 22% vs heterosexual 6%; transgender students 25.9%- Excerpt
“"Overall, 20.4% seriously considered attempting suicide, and 9.5% had attempted suicide... The prevalence of mental health and suicide risk indicators was high across all demographic groups; however, prevalence was highest among female students and LGBQ+ students." ”
- Source data from
- 2024-10-24
- Accessed
- 2026-04-19 · archived copy
- Calculation
- The YRBS is a nationally representative, school-based, anonymous survey of US high school students conducted biennially by the CDC since 1991. In 2023, the survey captured approximately 20,000 students across grades 9-12. The 9.5% past-year attempt prevalence is the primary native rate. By sex: female students 13%, male students 6% (approximate 2:1 ratio). By sexual identity: LGBQ+ students 22%, heterosexual students 6% (approximate 3.7:1 ratio). Transgender students 25.9%, cisgender females 11.0%, cisgender males 5.3%. By race: Black students 10% (down from 14% in 2021), White students approximately 8%, Hispanic students approximately 10%. These are annual period-prevalence figures, not cumulative lifetime figures.
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[2] Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) — 2023 NSDUH Population Statistics Report: Adolescent Major Depressive Episodes and Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors
2023 NSDUH Population Statistics Report: Adolescent Major Depressive Episodes and Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors- Statistic
3.2 million adolescents aged 12-17 (12.3%) had serious thoughts of suicide in 2023; 856,000 (3.3%) attempted suicide; 4.5 million (18.1%) had a major depressive episode- Excerpt
“"In 2023, among adolescents aged 12 to 17, 3.2 million (or 12.3 percent) had serious thoughts of suicide... nearly half of those who had serious thoughts of suicide made suicide plans or attempted suicide, or both." ”
- Source data from
- 2024-08-01
- Accessed
- 2026-04-19 · archived copy
- Calculation
- NSDUH is a household-interview survey of approximately 70,000 persons aged 12+, conducted annually by SAMHSA. The 3.3% past-year attempt rate among 12-17 year-olds is lower than the YRBS 9.5% for several reasons: (1) NSDUH includes younger adolescents (12-13) with lower rates; (2) household interview format introduces social desirability bias (teen answers with parent potentially nearby); (3) the YRBS school-based anonymous questionnaire elicits higher self-report of sensitive behaviors. Both surveys are nationally representative. The NSDUH figure is used for the cumulative adolescence estimate because it covers the full 12-17 age range rather than the 14-18 high-school window.
- Independence
- Fully independent of the YRBS. Different sampling frame (household vs school), different survey instrument, different administering agency (SAMHSA vs CDC).
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[3] Pediatrics (American Academy of Pediatrics, Shain et al. 2024) — Suicide and Suicide Risk in Adolescents
Suicide and Suicide Risk in Adolescents- Statistic
AAP clinical report summarising epidemiology, risk factors, and screening recommendations for adolescent suicidality; notes suicide as the second leading cause of death for ages 10-34 and documents the attempt-to-death ratio of approximately 25:1 in adolescents- Excerpt
“"Suicide was the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 10 and 34." ”
- Source data from
- 2024-01-01
- Accessed
- 2026-04-19 · archived copy
- Calculation
- The AAP clinical report provides the clinical and epidemiological framing for adolescent suicidality. It corroborates the YRBS and NSDUH figures and situates the attempt rate in the context of the attempt-to-death ratio (~25:1 in adolescents, compared to ~4:1 in older adults). This ratio is used in the body text for context. The AAP report does not provide independent incidence data but synthesises the CDC and SAMHSA sources with clinical literature on risk factors, screening tools (PHQ-A, Columbia Protocol), and lethal means restriction.
- Independence
- Review article synthesising CDC and SAMHSA data with clinical literature. Not an independent data source for the headline prevalence figure.
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[4] The Trevor Project — 2024 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People
2024 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People- Statistic
12% of LGBTQ+ youth aged 13-24 attempted suicide in the past year (2024 survey of 18,000+ respondents); 46% of transgender and nonbinary youth seriously considered attempting suicide- Excerpt
“"More than one in ten LGBTQ+ young people attempted suicide in the past year." ”
- Source data from
- 2024-04-01
- Accessed
- 2026-04-19 · archived copy
- Calculation
- The Trevor Project survey is a large convenience sample (not probability-based) of LGBTQ+ youth aged 13-24 recruited online. The 12% past-year attempt rate is broadly consistent with the YRBS finding that 22% of LGBQ+ high school students attempted suicide — the Trevor Project figure is lower because it includes older youth (18-24) with lower attempt rates. The convenience-sample design may introduce selection bias in either direction. This source is included to document the LGBTQ+ disparity with the largest available sample, not as an independent prevalence estimate. The 50-state report released in March 2025 provided state-level breakdowns of these figures.
- Independence
- Fully independent of CDC YRBS and SAMHSA NSDUH. Different survey instrument, different sampling frame (online convenience sample of LGBTQ+ youth vs probability-based surveys of all youth).