What’s Behind The Spike In Suicide-Related ER Visits By Chicago’s Youth?

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Sasha-Ann Simons (0:15)

Hey Chicago, I'm Sasha-Ann Simons, and this is In the Loop.

Be sure to stick around until the end of the conversation to get a breakdown of the day's top local stories. But first, I want to note that we'll be discussing suicide in Chicago and steps being taken to reduce the suicide rate.

It's a horrific statistic, but suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people in the US. And that reality leaves many families, schools, and hospitals trying to respond. A new Northwestern study is looking at what happens when young people in crisis get to the hospital, and it raises important questions about whether Chicago has the resources to meet the need. As September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, in this episode of the pod, we checked in with the researcher behind that study to hear more about what they found and what could help. We also heard the firsthand account of a local woman who's lived through this experience and is now supporting others trying to navigate it. At the table was Dr. Audrey G. Brewer, a pediatrician and a researcher in the Department of Pediatrics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. And Rafiah Maxie-Cole, who's a licensed social worker and founder of Soul Survivors of Chicago. Dr. Brewer started by telling us more about the study and its findings. Here she is.

Audrey G. Brewer (1:42)

My colleagues and I at Northwestern and Lurie Children's Hospital, we conducted a study that was using a national database. So the Nationwide Emergency Department sample, also known as NEDS. And we were looking at emergency department visits across the country from 2016 to 2022 And in particular, we wanted to better understand what were some of the common reasons for why kids were presenting to emergency departments for mental health related concerns. And then we specifically looked at suicide related visits. And we also wanted to better understand at what level different emergency departments across our country were seeing these kids. So there's lots of hospitals, emergency departments, I would say, that are seeing large numbers of children every year. But there's also hospitals that have been defined as maybe not seeing as many children often in a year. Those hospitals that are seeing children more frequently throughout the year, those are like our large children hospitals like Lurie Children's Hospital. So there's quite a few children's hospitals across our country, but there's not enough of these children hospitals across our country. So many hospitals across our country oftentimes have routinely seen less children in their emergency departments.

These are hospitals that are frequently in our major cities as well as urban populations, but there are many of these hospitals that are in more rural communities as well.

Oh, sure. Sorry.

Sasha-Ann Simons (3:19)

Before we dig deeper, doctor, I want to make sure we're all still here with you. Tell us, because this comes up a lot when you read the study, suicide-related emergency visits. What falls under that? Just so we're all on the same page.

Audrey G. Brewer (3:30)

Sure. Absolutely. So we are defining those visits if a child or adolescent was presenting because of thoughts of wanting to hurt or harm themselves, any self-injury-related behavior. So those were sort of gambit all falling under those definitions.

Now, different hospitals maybe define that differently than other hospitals, but that's the general consensus in terms of the diagnosis.

Sasha-Ann Simons (4:00)

And how common would you say are ER visits involving kids suffering from self-harm or suicidal thoughts?

Audrey G. Brewer (4:07)

Yeah, I mean, this is a very common occurrence. We saw really high numbers across the study period. Those numbers actually increased from 2016 to 2022 by over 70 percent. And so that let us know that more and more kids were coming in to seek care because of suicide-related concerns.

And so, you know, this is obviously a very important issue that we want to make sure that all emergency departments, regardless of in the past how often they were treating kids for these concerns, that they feel well prepared. And that was a big reason for why we wanted to look at, you know, look at this data and do this study.

Sasha-Ann Simons (4:55)

And a big reason why we wanted to have this conversation on In the Loop, Rafiah, is because we're also seeing another trend, right? Suicide rates are rising faster among Black youth. Your organization, Soul Survivors, yeah, you are looking at that too. And you all are working with young people here in the city. So talk to us about what you're hearing from them.