Every year during the month of February, we celebrate Black History Month in order to raise awareness about Black history, share knowledge about the black experience, and recognize the contributions of Black people to our culture and society – and in this article, we’ll add to our knowledge of the current black experience in the U.S. by sharing what we know about mental health among black adolescents.
We’ve published one Black History Month post this year already. Please navigate to our blog to learn about the current state of mental health among young black adults:
February is Black History Month: Mental Health Among Young Black Adults
For a general overview on mental health in the Black/African American Community, please read this article:
July is Minority Mental Health Awareness Month (MMHAM)
When we talk about overall health and mental health in the black community, we often prioritize the following:
- Improving access to health and mental health treatment in the black community.
- Improving awareness and reducing stigma related to mental illness in the black community.
And when we talk about Black History Month in general, we also talk about awareness, stigma, improving access to social services – including health care and mental health care – and the long history of exclusion and discrimination experienced by Black people in the U.S.
This year, the theme for Black History Month is:
The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the sponsor/organizing body for Black History Month 2025, chose this theme to raise awareness about:
“…the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds – free and unfree, skilled, and unskilled, vocational and voluntary – intersect with the collective experiences of Black people.”
That’s an important topic – and essential for understanding the Black experience in the U.S. We encourage you to read it carefully. However, this article has a narrower focus: mental health among black adolescents.
Mental Health Among Black Adolescents: General Facts to Know
We collected the following data from the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2023 YRBS) published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). While the source data is currently unavailable from the CDC, we regularly download and prepare CDC data sets on adolescent and young adult mental health for reference, which means we can share the data – which may become available again in the future – with you.
We’ll start with an overview of adolescent mental health for people from all demographic groups.
Mental Health and Suicidality Among Adolescents, 2011-2021 Trends
Between 2011-2021, researchers observed the following trends:
- Depressive symptoms among high school students increased by 50%
- High school students who seriously considered suicide increased 20%
- High school students who made a suicide plan increased by 16%
- Suicide attempts among high school students increased 9%
That data aligns with what we know about the current state of adolescent mental health. In an advisory issued in 2021 , the Surgeon General of the United States stated the following:
“Every child’s path to adulthood—reaching developmental and emotional milestones, learning healthy social skills, and dealing with problems—is different and difficult. Many face added challenges along the way, often beyond their control. There’s no map, and the road is never straight. But the challenges today’s generation of young people face are unprecedented and uniquely hard to navigate. And the effect these challenges have had on their mental health is devastating.”
The factors that have a direct impact on adolescent mental health include, among others:
- Social inequality
- Economic inequality
- Discrimination
- Racism
- Media
- Government policy
- Environment
- Relationships
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- Sexual orientation
While reviewing the data that follows, we encourage you to understand it through the lens of the factors that directly – and historically – impact black adolescents: inequality, discrimination, and racism. There are other factors that impact mental health, of course. However, during Black History Month, it’s important to focus on the factors relevant to the black experience in the U.S., which is characterized by ongoing inequality, exclusion, discrimination, and racism.
Mental Health Among Black Adolescents Compared to Other Demographic Groups
We’ll start with data on symptoms of depression that don’t meet full criteria for a clinical diagnosis, but have an impact on mental health: sadness and hopelessness.
Here’s what the CDC researchers found:
Persistent Feelings of Sadness or Hopelessness
- Total: 42%
- By race/ethnicity:
- American Indian or Alaska Native: 40%
- Asian: 35%
- Black: 39%
- Hispanic: 46%
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 39%
- White: 41%
- Multiracial: 49%
On this metric, black adolescents are squarely in the middle. With that said, that middle is something we need to be concerned about: when 4/10 of our students report feelings of sadness and hopelessness, we understand what the Surgeon General means: our youth are experiencing an ongoing, long-term mental health crisis.
Now let’s look at another general metric measured in the YRBS: poor mental health.
Experienced Poor Mental Health, Past 30-Days
- Total: 29%
- By race/ethnicity:
- American Indian or Alaska Native: 31%
- Asian: 23%
- Black: 26%
- Hispanic: 30%
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 20%
- White: 30%
- Multiracial: 33%
Again, we see black teens right in the middle: not the lowest rates, not the highest. And again, we note that 3/10 adolescents reporting poor mental health is further evidence of the youth and adolescent mental health crisis.
Now we’ll switch gears to perhaps the most serious metrics we’ll report, which are those related to suicidality. Suicidality includes thinking about suicide, making a suicide plan, and attempting suicide. Here’s what the CDC researchers found:
Seriously Considered Suicide, Past Year
- Total: 22%
- By race/ethnicity:
- American Indian or Alaska Native: 27%
- Asian: 18%
- Black: 22%
- Hispanic: 22%
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 21%
- White: 23%
- Multiracial: 24%
Made a Suicide Plan, Past Year
- Total: 18%
- By race/ethnicity:
- American Indian or Alaska Native: 22%
- Asian: 17%
- Black: 18%
- Hispanic: 19%
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 20%
- White: 17%
- Multiracial: 20%
Attempted Suicide, Past Year
- Total: 10%
- By race/ethnicity:
- American Indian or Alaska Native: 16%
- Asian: 6%
- Black: 14%
- Hispanic: 11%
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 10%
- White: 9%
- Multiracial: 12%
In those data sets – which are by default disturbing, alarming, and cause for serious concern – we see black adolescents squarely in the middle, with the exception of suicide attempts, where they’re above the national average, and second being American Indian/Alaskan Natives.
Reconciling that result with the previous results creates a challenge. We’ll brainstorm ways can we understand above-average suicide attempt rates in light of average rates of mental health symptoms and distress. That’s a conundrum we need to unpack in order to support the mental health of black adolescents.
Now we’ll switch gears again, and look at two sets of data related to positive mental health: feeling connected at school and experiencing high levels of parental supervision, a.k.a. monitoring.
What Helps Mental Health Among Young Black Adolescents?
The things that help young black adolescents are the same things that help all adolescents: the loving support of caring adults, a safe place to live, good food to eat, good schools to attend, plenty of friends, and plenty of exercise and activity. The 2023 YRBS asked questions that cover two of those factors: friends, i.e. feeling connected at school, and parental supervision, i.e. high levels of parental monitoring. Evidence shows that both are associated with positive mental health, higher levels of educational attainment, healthy and productive interpersonal relationships, and lower levels of alcohol/drug use, risky behavior, and behavioral disorders.
First, let’s compare how adolescents of different racial backgrounds say about how connected they feel to their peers at school.
Here’s the data:
School Connectedness: Felt Close to People at School
- Total: 61%
- By race/ethnicity:
- American Indian or Alaska Native: 54%
- Asian: 67%
- Black: 54%
- Hispanic: 58%
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 60%
- White: 65%
- Multiracial: 60%
That’s instructive, and another thing we need to unpack: Black and American Indian/Alaskan Natives feel less connected than all other demographic groups, both at rates seven percent below the national average. That’s a possible clue for understanding our previous data.
Now let’s look at the last set of statistics we’ll share in this article: levels of parental/adult supervision. Here’s what the CDC researchers found:
Experienced High Level of Parental Monitoring
- Total: 86%
- By race/ethnicity:
- American Indian or Alaska Native: 84%
- Asian: 91%
- Black: 80%
- Hispanic: 84%
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 84%
- White: 89%
- Multiracial: 87%
That data surprises us. Black adolescents reported the lowest levels of parental monitoring among all demographic groups. Combined with feeling less connected at school, this may offer another clue to the confounding figures above. That’s an observation on the data we share here, rather than a judgment on parenting styles or choices. It’s also related to factors that impact Black people overall, such as discrimination, exclusion, racism, and various social determinants of health (SDOH).
Reduced parental monitoring often has nothing to do with motivation to parent, but rather everything to do with time, access, social support, and the freedom to be present as a parent at will. Barriers to these prerequisites for high levels of parental monitoring are a reality that the historically underserved and disadvantaged black population in the U.S. face every day by default – simply because they’re black.
Black History Month and Mental Health Among Black Teens
To further understand the disparities we observe above – higher rates of suicidality despite average rates of psychological/emotional distress – and cannot be attributed simply to low levels of peer connection and lower-than-average parental monitoring, we examined the current literature on mental health among black adolescents.
The peer-reviewed journal article “Mental Health Burden among Black Adolescents: The Need for Better Assessment, Diagnosis and Treatment Engagement” offers logical, evidence-based answers. Here’s what the authors observed:
“Consistent with the recent trends in suicidal ideation and rates among Black children and adolescents, our study reports high rates of suicidal ideations among youth in both treatment and community sample.”
And here are the factors they identify that contribute to this disturbing phenomenon:
- Exposure to trauma
- Racial discrimination
- Lack of access to culturally competent mental health treatment providers
How can we rectify this situation?
According to the study authors, by taking the following steps:
- Expand access to mental health services, including in schools and neighborhood recreation centers.
- Increase presence of Black mental health providers in communities with Black adolescents
- Reach out to Black families to reduce stigma around mental health disorders and mental health treatment
- Recognize the effect – acute and chronic – of intergenerational trauma, institutionalized discrimination, and systemic racism on Black adolescents
- Actively work to identify, address, and resolve trauma – historical or other
For Black adolescents with clinical mental health disorders, and those with subclinical mental health symptoms, it’s important to consider how the World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health:
“A state of wellness in which every individual realizes their potential, can cope with the typical stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to society.”
That’s what all parents want for their teens, of course. That’s what we want for all the teens we support every day at BACA. And during Black History Month, we’ll make a point of advocating for any ideas, policies, programs, or initiatives that improve not only the physical and mental health of Black adolescents, but improve their lives in all areas: personal, social, relational, academic, financial, and vocational.
We want that for everyone, of course. Black History Month offers us the opportunity to raise our voices in support of the historically disadvantaged Black population in the U.S. and help us course correct as we move forward through the 21st century and beyond.
