More Michigan children are losing parents to overdose, suicide, homicide
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This month, we're turning our attention to National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, an important time dedicated to raising awareness, breaking stigma, and exploring the science behind mental health and suicide prevention.
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 13-Dec-2025 18:11 ET (13-Dec-2025 23:11 GMT/UTC)
The number of Michigan children whose parents died from overdose, suicide, homicide or other substance-related causes has surged since 2000, accounting for 2 in 5 parental deaths, a new University of Michigan study found.
Virtual reality is emerging as a powerful tool to improve care for veterans, including helping community members recognize suicide warning signs. Researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington have conducted two studies exploring how the technology can address the complex challenges veterans face.
The project aims to study the mental health of adolescents aged 14 to 17 living in Spain and to analyse which support networks are important at this stage. To do so, both qualitative and quantitative methodologies were combined, yielding several samples: a representative sample of 806 adolescents nationwide and an additional sample of 228 LGTBI+ adolescents for the survey and 44 LGTBQI+ participants in discussion groups.
The results show that 11.2% of adolescents in the overall sample report feeling very or quite unhappy, and 38.8% indicate that they have experienced loneliness regularly in the past year. Regarding depression, 14% would be experiencing severe episodes, and 6.6% would be in very severe episodes.
Additionally, the study finds that 15.7% of respondents report having attempted suicide, 19.8% have considered it, and 29.3% have engaged in self-harming behaviours in the past year, of which 10.5% report thinking about it frequently.
Suicide remains a leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults worldwide. However, recent global data reveal heterogeneous suicide trends across regions.
A new study by researchers at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine has found that suicide rates among young people (ages 10-29) are moving in very different directions across countries. In the U.S. and Canada, most groups of young people are seeing stable or even declining rates, except for Canadian teenage girls, who continue to show increases. In South Korea, however, suicide rates among both young men and women have sharply increased in recent years, especially among young women.
A new study has revealed the deeply personal reasons that suicidal adolescents give for wanting to live, with family, friends, pets, and hopes for the future topping the list.