Title: Statistics — Megan Meier Foundation
Headings: Bullying, Cyberbullying, & Suicide Statistics
Bullying, Cyberbullying, & Suicide Statistics
Bullying
CYBERBULLYING
Self-Harm
Suicide
mental health
Discrimination
Bullying Intervention
crime, violence, & law enforcement

Content: Statistics — Megan Meier Foundation
Bullying, Cyberbullying, & Suicide Statistics
Featured statistics for each category can be viewed below or click the button for a pdf list of all available statistics. ALL STATISTICS
Bullying
Nearly 1 in 5 students ( 21%) report being bullied during the school year, impacting over 5 million youth annually (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2018)
Youth who are bullied are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, lower academic achievement, and dropping out of school (CDC, 2018)
Almost all forms of bullying peak in middle school, specifically 6th-grade students reported the highest percentage of bullying ( 29%) (NCES, 2019)
CYBERBULLYING
Approximately 34% of students report experiencing cyberbullying during their lifetime (Hinduja & Patchin, 2015)
Over 60% of students who experience cyberbullying reported that it immensely impacted their ability to learn and feel safe while at school (Hinduja, 2018)
59% of U.S. teens have been bullied or harassed online, and over 90% believe it's a major problem for people their age (Pew Research Center, 2018)
Self-Harm
Targets of cyberbullying are at a greater risk than others of both self-harm and suicidal behaviors (John et al., 2018)
Approximately 18% of youth report self-harming at least once, impacting 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 10 boys (Monto, McRee, & Deryck, 2018)
About 6% of students have digitally self-harmed, or anonymously posted online or shared hurtful content about themselves (Patchin & Hinduja, 2017)
Suicide
Students who experienced bullying or cyberbullying are nearly 2 times more likely to attempt suicide (Hinduja & Patchin, 2018)
Current research suggests that suicide ideation and attempts among adolescents have nearly doubled since 2008 (Plemmons et al., 2018), making suicide the 2nd leading cause of death for individuals 10-34 years of age (CDC, 2017)
Approximately 1 in 20 adolescents experience suicide in a single year (Andriessen, Dudley, Draper, & Mitchell, 2018)
mental health
Experience of bullying and cyberbullying are also associated with the development of low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, family problems, academic difficulties, delinquency, school violence, and suicidal thoughts/attempts (Hinduja, 2018)
Approximately 1 in 5 children and youth in the US experience a serious mental health concern associated with trauma, social isolation, and bullying, yet only 20% of them receive the help they need (CDC, 2019)
Research has found that about 90% of individuals who die by suicide experience mental illness, one of the greatest risk factors for suicide (National Alliance on Mental Illness [NAMI], 2015)
Discrimination
Students most often reported reasons for being bullied that include physical appearance, race/ethnicity, gender, disability, religion, and/or sexual orientation (NCES, 2016)
Overall, approximately 135,200 individual allegations of harassment or bullying on the basis of sex, race, sexual orientation, disability, or religion during the 15-16 school year (U.S. Department of Education & OCR, 2019)
17% of students reported experiencing one type of bias-based bullying, specifically gender, race, and disability being the most common reasons for being targeted, which increases the student’s fear of being harmed, school avoidance, and negative effects on physical, psychological, and academic well-being (NCES, 2016)
Bullying Intervention
Nearly 76% of public schools reported providing training for classroom teachers or aides on recognizing physical, social, and verbal bullying behaviors (NCES, 2018)
The strongest protective factor against being a target of cyberbullying was positive peer interaction (Zycha, Farrington, & Ttofi, 2018)
Developing a positive school climate is consistently associated with lower rates of bullying and cyberbullying behaviors (Hinduja & Patchin, 2016), specific anti-bullying and anti-cyberbullying programs effectively reduce school-bullying behaviors by anywhere 10 – 20% (Gaffney, Ttofi, & Farrington, 2018; Gaffney, Farrington, Espelage, & Ttofi, 2018)
crime, violence, & law enforcement
During the 2015–16 school year, 79% of public schools recorded that one or more incidents of violence, theft or other crimes had taken place (U.S. Department of Education & NCES, 2019)
6% of students had been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property 1 or more times and about 4% of students ages 12–18 reported that they had been afraid of attack or harm at school during the school year (U.S. Department of Education & NCES, 2019)
There is a strong relationship between bullying behaviors and violent injury over time (Jetelina et al., 2018)