Youth Mental Health Statistics: The Data Behind the Crisis

The scale of the youth mental health crisis is easiest to grasp through two numbers. Nearly 1 in 5 children ages 3 to 17 — about 21% — have ever been diagnosed with a mental, emotional, or behavioral condition (CDC, 2024). And in 2023, 40% of U.S. high school students reported that they had felt persistently sad or hopeless during the past year: sad or hopeless nearly every day for two weeks or more, to the point of stopping some usual activities (CDC, 2024).

That second figure comes from the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), a nationally representative survey of high school students conducted every two years. It is the single most-cited barometer of adolescent mental health in the United States, and it captures far more than a general mood. In 2023, one in five high school students seriously considered attempting suicide, and roughly one in eleven attempted it. Both the CDC and the U.S. Surgeon General now describe what the country faces as a “national youth mental health crisis” (CDC, 2024; US Surgeon General, 2023).

This article lays out what the data actually show — the persistent-sadness numbers broken down by sex, sexual orientation, and race; the figures on suicidal thoughts and attempts; a recent, modest improvement set against a decade-long rise; and the sharp climb in emergency-department visits. It is the overview hub for our youth coverage; the companion pieces on teen depression statistics and social media and teen mental health go deeper on specific pieces.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7.

Persistent Sadness and Hopelessness

The YRBS “persistent sadness or hopelessness” measure is the crisis’s headline indicator. In 2023, 40% of high school students met the threshold (CDC, 2024). But the overall figure conceals gaps so wide that a national average is almost misleading on its own.

The largest divides are by sex and by sexual orientation. Female students reported persistent sadness at nearly twice the rate of male students, and students who identify as LGBTQ+ reported it at more than twice the rate of their heterosexual peers. By race and ethnicity, the differences are comparatively small.

Source: CDC, 2024 (Youth Risk Behavior Survey).

Two takeaways stand out. First, more than half of all female high school students — 53% — reported persistent sadness or hopelessness, compared with 28% of males. Second, LGBTQ+ students are the highest-risk group in nearly every YRBS measure, with 65% reporting persistent sadness. These are associations captured by the survey, not causal explanations, but they are consistent enough across years and measures that the CDC treats them as central to the crisis. Our pages on teen mental health and LGBTQ+ populations cover these groups in more depth.

Suicidal Thoughts and Attempts

The YRBS also asks students directly about suicidal thoughts and behavior, and the 2023 results are stark. Among all high school students, 20% seriously considered attempting suicide during the past year, and 9% attempted suicide one or more times (CDC, 2024).

As with persistent sadness, the burden is not evenly distributed. The table below shows the share of students who attempted suicide, broken out by group.

Source: CDC, 2024 (Youth Risk Behavior Survey).

Female students attempted suicide at more than twice the rate of male students, and LGBTQ+ students at more than three times the rate of heterosexual students — 20% versus 6%. The one-in-five figure among LGBTQ+ students means that, by this measure, attempts were as common as serious consideration was in the student body overall. For the broader clinical context behind these behaviors, see our overviews of suicide attempts and suicidality and self-harm, and our companion analysis of suicide statistics by age.

A Recent Improvement Against a Decade-Long Rise

The 2023 data carry a rare piece of encouraging news. The share of students reporting persistent sadness or hopelessness ticked down from 42% in 2021 to 40% in 2023 — the first improvement in years (CDC, 2024). Among female students, the figure fell from 57% in 2021 to 53% in 2023.

That short-term dip should be read against the longer trend, however. Across the full decade from 2013 to 2023, the share of students reporting persistent sadness rose overall (CDC, 2024). A two-point decline from a recent peak is real, but it leaves the measure well above where it stood ten years earlier. The crisis has eased slightly from its worst point; it has not reversed.

The pattern is echoed in clinical data. Among adolescents ages 12 to 17, an estimated 15.4% — about 3.8 million — experienced a past-year major depressive episode in 2024, down from 20.8% in 2021 (SAMHSA, 2025). Here too the recent direction is downward, from an unusually high pandemic-era level. Our breakdown of teen depression covers these figures in detail, alongside our page on teen anxiety.

Emergency-Department Visits Are Climbing

Survey data describe how students feel; emergency-department (ED) data describe when that distress becomes an acute crisis. Here the trend is unambiguous, and it points at a specific group.

Analyzing ED visits for suspected suicide attempts from 2021 to 2025, the CDC found that adolescents ages 12 to 17 accounted for more suspected-suicide-attempt visits than any other age group — 207,028 visits, or 24.8% of all such visits across every age (CDC, 2025). Adolescents also had the highest rate: 82.2 suspected-attempt visits per 10,000 ED visits, well above other age groups.

Within that adolescent group, the visits fell disproportionately on girls. The rate among adolescent girls reached 120.0 suspected-attempt visits per 10,000 ED visits — the highest of any age-and-sex combination in the analysis (CDC, 2025). The sex gap visible in the YRBS survey data, in other words, is mirrored at the most acute end of the spectrum, in hospital emergency rooms.

Why “Crisis” Is the Operative Word

The word “crisis” is doing real work here, and it is not the language of advocacy groups alone — it is the framing adopted by federal public-health authorities. The CDC’s youth mental health materials and the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisories both describe a national youth mental health crisis, citing the convergence of rising distress, elevated suicidal behavior, and growing demand for acute care (CDC, 2024; US Surgeon General, 2023).

Part of what makes the picture hard to summarize is that no single factor explains it. Researchers and the Surgeon General point to a range of associated pressures — including academic and social stress, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and heavy use of social media — while being careful to frame these as correlates and contributors rather than proven causes. The Surgeon General’s 2023 advisory on social media, for instance, reports that adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face roughly double the risk of depression and anxiety symptoms, but explicitly presents this as an association drawn from the research, not as evidence that social media causes mental illness (US Surgeon General, 2023). We examine that evidence carefully in our piece on social media and teen mental health, and our overview of how schools address youth mental health looks at where the system is responding.

A Historical Benchmark

It helps to place today’s figures against an older baseline, provided one reads that baseline as history rather than as a current statistic. The most-cited lifetime estimate comes from the National Comorbidity Survey Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A), a landmark study based on data collected from 2001 to 2004. It found that 49.5% of U.S. adolescents ages 13 to 18 had met criteria for any mental disorder at some point in their lifetime, with 22.2% of those affected experiencing severe impairment.

This 49.5% figure is HISTORICAL — it reflects 2001–2004 data and is not a current measurement. It is not directly comparable to the YRBS or SAMHSA figures above, which use different definitions, time frames, and methods. Its value is as a reminder that a substantial share of adolescents have long met criteria for a diagnosable condition at some point; the more recent survey data track how acute distress and suicidal behavior have moved in the years since. For how these conditions accumulate across the population, see our hub on any mental illness.

Frequently Asked Questions

What percentage of youth have a mental health condition?

Nearly 1 in 5 children ages 3 to 17 — about 21% — have ever been diagnosed with a mental, emotional, or behavioral condition (CDC, 2024). By a different measure, an older benchmark from the NCS-A, based on 2001–2004 data, found that 49.5% of adolescents 13 to 18 had met criteria for any mental disorder in their lifetime.

What share of high school students feel sad or hopeless?

In 2023, 40% of U.S. high school students reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless during the past year, down from 42% in 2021. The figure was much higher among female students (53%) and LGBTQ+ students (65%) (CDC, 2024).

How many teens consider or attempt suicide?

According to the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 20% of high school students seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, and 9% attempted suicide. Attempts were most common among LGBTQ+ students (20%) and female students (13%) (CDC, 2024).

Is the youth mental health crisis getting better or worse?

Both, depending on the time frame. Persistent sadness dipped from 42% in 2021 to 40% in 2023, and teen depression rates also fell from their pandemic-era peak. But across the full decade from 2013 to 2023, the share of students reporting persistent sadness rose overall, and emergency-department visits for suspected suicide attempts remain elevated among adolescents (CDC, 2024; CDC, 2025).

Which groups of young people are most affected?

The YRBS data consistently show the highest levels of distress among female students and LGBTQ+ students. In 2023, 53% of females and 65% of LGBTQ+ students reported persistent sadness, and LGBTQ+ students attempted suicide at more than three times the rate of heterosexual students (CDC, 2024).

Sources

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey Results. CDC; 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/yrbs/results/2023-yrbs-results.html

2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report: 2013–2023. CDC; 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/yrbs/dstr/index.html

3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Youth Mental Health: The Numbers. CDC; 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/healthy-youth/mental-health/mental-health-numbers.html

4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data and Statistics on Children’s Mental Health. CDC; 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/children-mental-health/data-research/index.html

5. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Emergency Department Visits for Suspected Suicide Attempts — United States, 2021–2025. MMWR. 2025. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/75/wr/mm7524a1.htm

6. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Results from the 2024 NSDUH: Highlights. SAMHSA; 2025. https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH%202024%20Annual%20Release/2024-nsduh-nnr-highlights.pdf

7. Office of the U.S. Surgeon General. Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory. HHS; 2023. https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/reports-and-publications/youth-mental-health/social-media/index.html