Suicide the leading cause of death among young Australians

New data has revealed what’s killing more young Australians than anything else – with older teens most at-risk – as the silent pandemic is highlighted in a new campaign.

More Australian children are dying by suicide than any other cause of death, and latest figures warn older teens are most at risk.

It comes as calls grow for better tracking of non-fatal self-harm and suicide attempts to help struggling young people before it is too late.

Data released on Wednesday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows 29 children aged 5 to 17 have died by suicide in South Australia in the past five years, or just more than two in every 100,000 children.

Of the young people who died, 20 were aged between 15 and 17.

Nationally 513 five to 17-year-olds died by suicide over the same period, or 2.5 in every 100,000.

More than half were aged 16 or 17.

The ABS report confirmed that suicide “remained the leading cause of death of children in Australia”, while it ranked 15th among causes of death for the total population.

On Monday, The Advertiser launched Can We Talk, a campaign to encourage young South Australians who are struggling with their mental health to voice their concerns and seek help.

Leading mental health figures have conceded the system is not meeting soaring demand and desperate parents are pleading for more investment.

“We know that the past couple of years have been hard on young people but these recent statistics further show the extent of this impact,” said Nic Brown, CEO of youth mental health service batyr.

“We need to go upstream and help young people see hope for their future, develop tools to navigate tough times (and) reduce stigma around talking about mental health and accessing support.”

Suicide Prevention Australia CEO Nieves Murray reiterated that “each number” in the ABS report “represents a life lost which was valued and will be missed”.

“The impact of suicide can be felt across families, schools, workplaces, sporting clubs and community groups,” Ms Murray said.

She said “more timely data” was also needed on suicide attempts “to better understand and respond to distress in our communities”.

This call was echoed by National Mental Health Commission CEO Christine Morgan and the head of the National Suicide Prevention Office, Dr Michael Gardner.

Nieves Murray, of Suicide Prevention Australia.

Separate data, released exclusively to The Advertiser, shows suicides among children and teenagers in South Australia have reached their highest level in a decade.

Analysis shows the highest rates of deaths are among young people in Adelaide’s northern suburbs and the state’s far north and south-east. The alarming figures have prompted calls for better awareness of the pressures facing young people and easier access to support services.

Between 2011 and 2020, 114 young people aged five to 19 took their lives in SA.

There were no fewer than six deaths recorded in any year and the number peaked at 16 in 2011 and again in 2020.

A further 165 young adults aged 20 to 24 died by suicide over the same period.

“It’s so hard when you’ve got a family, they’ve got a child who is at breaking point, and they don’t know where to go,” said Parents for Change co-founder Anne-marie Taplin.

“Everything comes together to create an incredible funnel of difficulty for families to access any help at all.”

Wait times to see both public and private psychologists or psychiatrists range from a fortnight to months and private appointments costing hundreds of dollars are out of reach for many.

“The reality is that all of our youth mental health services are oversubscribed,” said David Kelly, one of SA’s three Mental Health Commissioners.

“It is a challenge recruiting mental health specialists, however much the government invests, however many (hospital) beds there are. There may never be enough.

“(So) we need to empower our schools, our youth organisations, our communities to feel confident to support young people who are in distress … to identify young people who might be at risk and reach out.”

The highest youth suicide rates across SA were recorded in the state’s Far North and Outback, where almost 11 in every 100,000 residents aged five to 24 died by suicide in the past decade. The rate was 9 deaths per 100,000 people in the southeast region and 7.3 in Adelaide’s northern suburbs.

Overall there were more suicides recorded in metropolitan areas (203) compared to rest of SA (74), but when taking population into account the rate of deaths was higher in country areas (8.2 per 100,000) compared to greater Adelaide (6.1 per 100,000).

Suicide rates among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people were two and a half times higher than non-Indigenous young people.

Over the decade 15.6 in every 100,000 Indigenous five to 24-year-olds died by suicide.

Among non-Indigenous young people there were 6.1 deaths in every 100,000.

Since March 2020 authorities have been tracking all suspected suicide deaths in South Australia on a central register.

SA Health Chief Psychiatrist Dr John Brayley says there is a need for greater capacity. Picture: Dean Martin/NCANewswire

SA Chief Psychiatrist Dr John Brayley said the register was helping to “understand what’s happening in pretty close to real time”.

“It has helped identify particular means of suicide. There was one means that we actually took to the Therapeutic Goods Administration,” he said. “It also helps identify particular clusters where there might be connections.”

Dr Brayley said SA’s system offered “a high standard of care” but he conceded not everyone in need could access it. “We need more capacity in the public, the Commonwealth-funded and the private system, there’s no doubt about that,” he said.

Dr Brayley said extra staff were being hired for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, including six specialist nurses, five child psychiatrists and 10 child psychologists.

The State Government has convened a 15-member panel tasked with developing the state’s Suicide Prevention Plan.

Originally published as Suicide the leading cause of death among young Australians