Importance Suicide is a leading cause of death among school-aged children younger than 12 years but little is known about the epidemiology of suicide in this age group. 
 
 Objective To describe trends in suicide among US children younger than 12 years by sociodemographic group and method of death. 
 
 Design, Setting, and Participants Period trend analysis of national mortality data on suicide in children aged 5 to 11 years in the United States from January 1, 1993, to December 31, 2012. Data were analyzed per 5-year periods, between 1993 to 1997 and 2008 to 2012. 
 
 Main Outcomes and Measures Number of suicide deaths and crude suicide rates. Period trends in rates of suicide were estimated using negative binomial regression incidence rate ratios (IRRs). 
 
 Results The overall suicide rate among children aged 5 to 11 years remained stable between 1993 to 1997 and 2008 to 2012 (from 1.18 to 1.09 per 1 million; IRR = 0.96; 95% CI, 0.90-1.03). However, the suicide rate increased significantly in black children (from 1.36 to 2.54 per 1 million; IRR = 1.27; 95% CI, 1.11-1.45) and decreased in white children (from 1.14 to 0.77 per 1 million; IRR = 0.86; 95% CI, 0.79-0.94). The overall firearm suicide rate (IRR = 0.69; 95% CI, 0.57-0.85) and firearm suicide rate among white boys (IRR = 0.72; 95% CI, 0.59-0.88) decreased significantly during the study. The rate of suicide by hanging/suffocation increased significantly in black boys (IRR = 1.35; 95% CI, 1.14-1.61), although the overall change in suicide rates by hanging/suffocation or other suicide methods did not change during the study. 
 
 Conclusions and Relevance The stable overall suicide rate in school-aged children in the United States during 20 years of study obscured a significant increase in suicide incidence in black children and a significant decrease in suicide incidence among white children. Findings highlight a potential racial disparity that warrants attention. Further studies are needed to monitor these emerging trends and identify risk, protective, and precipitating factors relevant to suicide prevention efforts in children younger than 12 years. ||||| The seed for this crawl was a list of every host in the Wayback Machine 
 
 This crawl was run at a level 1 (URLs including their embeds, plus the URLs of all outbound links including their embeds) 
 
 The WARC files associated with this crawl are not currently available to the general public. ||||| The overall suicide rate among children between the ages of five and 11 was stable during the 20 years from 1993 to 2012, but that stability obscured racial differences that show an increase in suicide among black children and a decrease among white children. 
 
 For a study published by JAMA Pediatrics, researchers led by Jeffrey A. Bridge, Ph.D., of the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, analyzed 20 years of nationwide mortality data. 
 
 The researchers found that 657 children between the ages of five and 11 died by suicide between 1993 and 2012 — an average of nearly 33 children each year. They also found that 553 (84 percent) of the children were boys and 104 (16 percent) were girls. 
 
 Hanging/suffocation was the predominant method of suicide, accounting for 78.2 percent (514 of 657) of the total suicides, followed by firearms (17.7 percent; 116 of 657) and other methods (4.1 percent; 27 of 657), according to the results. 
 
 The analysis showed that the overall suicide rate remained stable during the 20-year period, going from 1.18 per one million to 1.09 per million. 
 
 However, the researchers found that that stability resulted from divergent trends in suicide for black and white children during those 20 years. 
 
 The suicide rate increased in black children from 1.36 per one million to 2.54 per one million, while the suicide rate decreased in white children from 1.14 per one million to 0.77 per one million. 
 
 The statistically significant racial differences were confined to both black and white boys, with an increase in the suicide rate among black boys (1.78 to 3.47 per one million) and a decrease in the suicide rate among white boys (from 1.96 to 1.31 per one million). 
 
 Although the changes were not statistically significant among girls, the suicide rate among black girls increased from 0.68 to 1.23 per one million during the 20-year period, while the suicide rate among white girls remained stable from 0.25 to 0.24 per one million, according to the study’s findings. 
 
 According to the researchers, the findings prompt questions about what factors might influence increasing suicide rates among young black children, such as disproportionate exposure to violence and traumatic stress, aggressive school discipline, and an early onset of puberty. 
 
 However, the researchers said it remains unclear if any of these factors are related to increasing suicide rates. 
 
 “The stable overall suicide rate among U.S. children aged five to 11 years during 20 years of study masked a significant increase in the suicide rate among black children and a significant decline in the suicide rate among white children,” the authors write. 
 
 “From a public health perspective, future steps should include ongoing surveillance to monitor these emerging trends and research to identify risk, protective and precipitating factors associated with suicide in elementary school-aged children to frame targets for early detection and culturally informed interventions.” 
 
 Source: The JAMA Network Journals
– It has to rank among the saddest of studies: a new look at suicides among young children. Researchers reviewed two decades of CDC data, from 1993 to 2012. Though they write in JAMA Pediatrics that "suicide is a leading cause of death among school-aged children younger than 12 years," they found that suicides among those ages 5 to 11 are very rare, reports the AP: There were 657 during the period studied, or one roughly every week-and-a-half (per the CDC, the daily average for all ages is 105 suicides). But while the suicide rate remained stable during that time, "that stability obscured racial differences," observes Psych Central. The suicide rate decreased in white children, but increased significantly in black children, from from 1.36 to 2.54 per 1 million between the study's first five years and its last five. (In white children, the shift was from 1.14 to 0.77.) That shot suicide up from No. 14 on the list of causes of death among black kids of this age to No. 9; it's No. 11 for white kids. The researchers noted that 84% of those who committed suicide were boys and just 16% girls, and the rate worsens when viewed through a gender lens as well. For black boys, the rate climbed to 3.47 per million. The findings represent a big shift, per lead author Jeffrey Bridge. "Historically, the suicide rate among US black individuals has been lower than that of white individuals across age groups," reads the study. "To our knowledge, this is the first national study to observe higher suicide rates among US black individuals compared with white individuals." Hanging and suffocation were the main methods for young children. Bridge advises parents to look for warning signs like prolonged unhappiness and withdrawing from favorite activities. (Related: Why men kill themselves more often than women.)