IStock Photo 6547982 © Aldo Murillo

Teenage suicide is a tragic event but one that touches relatively few; in a given year, 1 in 13,680 teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 will take their lives. Even so, suicide is the third leading cause of death among kids and young adults between the ages of 10 and 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Patterns of suicidal behavior are strikingly different in boys and girls. The odds that a teenage girl will commit suicide in a given year are 1 in 35,340, while the odds that a teenage boy will do so are almost four times as high at 1 in 8,643.

The rarity of actual suicide contrasts with prevalence of suicidal thoughts and attempts. For every teenage suicide that takes place, there are thousands of teens who attempt suicide, make a suicide plan, or seriously consider taking their own lives. The odds a high school student will attempt to take his or her own life in a given year are 1 in 14.49, and the odds of making a suicide plan are 1 in 8.85.

Girls are more likely than boys to have suicidal thoughts and to have feelings of hopelessness and sadness that interfere with their normal activities. Even though the rates of teenage suicides are lower for girls than for boys, the girls are twice as likely to attempt suicide: 1 in 10.75 teenage girls try to kill themselves each year compared to 1 in 21.74 teenage boys.

Because teen suicide is a rare and dramatic event, it's easy to overlook how common suicidal thoughts are among teens. Consider this: as many teenagers are contemplating taking their own lives as spent their summers working at restaurants and stores. The odds that a high school student will seriously contemplate attempting suicide in a year is 1 in 6.9, a number very close to the odds that student will have a part-time job: 1 in 6.74. These numbers suggest that suicide is not just an aberrant occurrence but the result of successive stages of emotional pain, each of which could offer an opportunity to intervene.