The study measured non-response to four suicide-related items in the US Youth Risk Behavior Survey from 2001 to 2021, covering 163,489 high school students. Ideation and plan items were almost always answered (under 2% missing), but the attempt (11.1%) and injury (13.9%) items were not, and injury missingness rose by 2.99% a year on average and by 6.49% a year from 2011 to 2021. Missingness was concentrated among Black (25.8% for injury), American Indian and Alaska Native (19.4%) and Hispanic (16.9%) adolescents, against 9.7% among white adolescents.
Why it is interesting: Subgroup comparisons in the main US adolescent suicide surveillance series rest on items that a rising and unevenly distributed share of respondents leave blank.