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Related Experiment Videos

Trends in adolescent suicide: misclassification bias?

B Mohler1, F Earls

  • 1Department of Maternal and Child Health, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115, USA. bmohler@hsph.harvard.edu

American Journal of Public Health
|February 24, 2001
PubMed
Summary

Official adolescent suicide data accurately reflect trends, even with misclassified accidental and undetermined deaths. Continuous monitoring for misclassification is crucial, especially in high-risk groups.

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Area of Science:

  • Public Health
  • Epidemiology
  • Mortality Statistics

Background:

  • Accurate adolescent suicide rates are vital for public health interventions.
  • Misclassification of deaths as accidental or undetermined can obscure true suicide trends.
  • Understanding these misclassifications is key to reliable adolescent mortality data.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To assess the impact of misclassified accidental and undetermined deaths on adolescent suicide rates.
  • To analyze age-, sex-, and race/ethnicity-specific suicide trends from 1979-1994.
  • To determine if official data accurately reflect adolescent suicide trends despite misclassification.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized official mortality data to establish baseline suicide trends.
  • Applied two distinct estimates of misclassified suicides in other death categories.

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  • Calculated 'corrected' adolescent suicide trends using these estimates.

    • Main Results:

    • Corrected trends indicated a downward adjustment for Black adolescent males and younger adolescents.
    • These adjustments did not significantly alter the observed recent increase in suicide rates for these groups.
    • Official mortality data appear to capture the general direction of adolescent suicide trends.

    Conclusions:

    • Official adolescent suicide data generally reflect true trends, despite misclassification issues.
    • Continuous assessment for misclassification is recommended, particularly in populations with high accidental/undetermined death rates.
    • Ensuring accurate classification improves the reliability of adolescent suicide surveillance.