• Each year as many as 8.3 percent of the adolescent population will begin exhibiting signs of depression.

• More teenagers die each year from suicide than from all other illnesses—from cancer to AIDS—combined.

• According to the CDC, each year, 1 in 5 high school students in the United States has thoughts of suicide.

• Each year, over 2 million high school students in the United States make specific suicide plans.

• Each year, some 400,000 high school students in the United States make suicide attempts requiring medical attention, coming to an average of 1,000 attempts a day nationwide, every day of the year.

• One in five teenagers report that they have had a major depressive episode that went untreated during their adolescence.

• While ten million children and adolescents have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder right now, there are only 7,000 board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrists in  the United States and fewer than 6,000 child psychologists.

• During adolescence, there is a burst of rapid brain maturation during a period that roughly correlates with the ages at which rates of depression increase markedly—this maturation may explain why adolescents have an increased susceptibility for depression.

• Gay and bisexual adolescents are more likely than their peers to have been victimized and threatened, to have used drugs and alcohol and to have engaged in sexually risky behaviors. In addition, they have more suicidal ideations and have made more suicidal attempts.

• While 31 percent of white children and adolescents with emotional problems receive treatment, only 22 percent of African–American and 14 percent of Hispanic children and adolescents receive the care they need.

• Overall, only 1 in 5 depressed teens gets psychiatric treatment, and those who are untreated are likely to experience a recurrence of their depression.

• In 90 percent of suicide cases, there is some underlying psychiatric disorder, with depression being by far the most common. It is the leading condition in half the suicides of adolescent boys and 70 percent of girls.

• Suicide rates among susceptible teens have been shown to increase following media coverage of teenage suicide.

• In recent years, adolescent suicide rates have begun to decline with a notable exception among teenage African-American males, whose rate has increased 105 percent in the past decade.

• Girls are twice as likely as boys to attempt suicide, but boys are ten times more likely to die (this may be explained by choice of method—girls tend to overdose, while boys are more likely to use guns).

• 80 percent of adults suffering from major depression will respond to antidepressant drugs.#

Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz is the author of More than Moody: Recognizing and Treating Adolescent Depression.