New Report Points to Progress on Teen Mental Health
Adolescent mental health is showing signs of improvement, with a new federal report finding fewer teens self-reporting major depressive episodes and suicidal thoughts in 2024. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, found adolescents aged 12 to 17 reported over a 20% decrease from 2021 to 2024 in depressive episodes and serious suicidal thoughts, planning and attempts over the course of the year. The data provides a positive look that analysts hope to see mirrored in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s statistics for 2024, which have not yet been released.
“It’s encouraging and welcome news, because the decade or two prior to 2020, we were seeing pretty rapid and consistent increase each year in (these metrics),” says Tanner Bommersbach, assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. But without seeing other national surveys and long-term trends, it is too early to come to any conclusions yet, Bommersbach says. The 2024 survey, based on responses from over 70,000 people aged 12 and up across the United States, is the first year that trends have been analyzed since 2020 following a change in methodology. The shift allows researchers to track changes in youth mental health since the beginning of the pandemic. Suicide remains a leading cause of death among adolescents, according to the report, a reality that has concerned families and advocates across the country.
Upward trends during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic “did open the eyes of a lot of policymakers, a lot of parents and other adults,” says Christine Crawford, associate medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “Parents, caregivers, as well as teachers, are a little bit more psychologically minded and more attuned to the mental health needs of the kids around them,” Crawford says, which has led to an increase in accessible mental health programs for youth, including school-based programs and telehealth. Many programs focus on prevention and early intervention, a strategy endorsed by the World Health Organization that provides individuals with the tools needed to deal with difficult situations before they escalate. By doing this, she says, adults normalize talking about difficult topics.
Your trusted source for breaking down the latest news from Washington and beyond, delivered weekdays. “I’m really encouraged by the fact that people realize that when it comes to youth mental health, we don’t have to wait until the kid is older or wait until there’s a crisis,” she says. “This idea of prevention, this idea of early intervention has now infiltrated the youth mental health space.” Bommersbach – a child and adolescent psychiatrist and mental health services researcher with a focus on suicide prevention – says that, although the report does not examine the reasons behind the data, the survey is one of the few examinations into national youth mental health data. Marissa Yelenik Aug. 8, 2025, at 4:08 p.m.
Alysa Liu’s Gold Medal Mental Health Journey
This weekend, the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 will come to a close, and Team USA secured dozens of medals across programs. This includes two gold medals won by figure skater Alysa Liu, one of which coming from her triumphant performance in the women’s singles event this season. At the last Winter Games, a different version of Liu was seen on the ice. The then-16-year-old skater placed sixth in the same event that she dominated this year. After the 2022 Games, Liu announced that she was retiring from the sport, noting “losing motivation” as the reason in a now-deleted Instagram post.
So what changed? In an interview with NBC after winning gold (with her additional gold medal from the women’s team event around her neck), Liu expressed how the brief hiatus was needed for both her mental health and athletic ability. “Breaks can do wonders for you,” Liu shares. “I think every athlete should take a break to be honest—actually not just athletes, everyone in general that’s kind of in the same loop in their life. I think it’s very healthy to kind of step back and get a different perspective. I sure learned a lot from it.” Fueling your body with nutritious foods and enough movement is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, but managing your stress and focusing on your emotional well-being is just as crucial. And Liu’s recent feats are proof of that. At 20, the Olympian is in the prime of her career, highlighting how physical and mental health are meant to go hand-in-hand with a joyous routine that keeps her smiling from start to finish. Danielle DeAngelis 2026
