Colorado’s youth suicide rate hits 17-year low, but experts say mental health struggles persist

Colorado’s youth suicide rate hits 17-year low, but experts say mental health struggles persist

The suicide rate for Colorado’s older children and teens last year reached its lowest level in nearly two decades, with fewer than half as many youth taking their own lives as at the worst point, in 2020. In May 2021, at the height of a pandemic that killed thousands of Coloradans and disrupted everything from school to sleepovers, Children’s Hospital Colorado and other health leaders rang the alarm about a youth mental health emergency in the s…