15 Percent Of Teens Think They'll Die Young

CHICAGO — A surprising number of teenagers _ nearly 15 percent _ think they're going to die young, leading many to drug use, suicide attempts and other unsafe behavior, new research suggests.

The study, based on a survey of more than 20,000 kids, challenges conventional wisdom that says teens engage in risky behavior because they think they're invulnerable to harm. Instead, a sizable number of teens may take chances "because they feel hopeless and figure that not much is at stake," said study author Dr. Iris Borowsky, a researcher at the University of Minnesota.

That behavior threatens to turn their fatalism into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Over seven years, kids who thought they would die early were seven time more likely than optimistic kids to be subsequently diagnosed with AIDS. They also were more likely to attempt suicide and get in fights resulting in serious injuries.

Borowsky said the magnitude of kids with a negative outlook was eye-opening.

Adolescence is "a time of great opportunity and for such a large minority of youth to feel like they don't have a long life ahead of them was surprising," she said.

The study suggests a new way doctors could detect kids likely to engage in unsafe behavior and potentially help prevent it, said Dr. Jonathan Klein, a University of Rochester adolescent health expert who was not involved in the research.

"Asking about this sense of fatalism is probably a pretty important component of one of the ways we can figure out who those kids at greater risk are," he said.

The study appears in the July issue of Pediatrics, released Monday.

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Scientists once widely believed that teenagers take risks because they underestimate bad consequences and figure "it can't happen to me," the study authors say. The new research bolsters evidence refuting that thinking.

Cornell University professor Valerie Reyna said the new study presents "an even stronger case against the invulnerability idea."

"It's extremely important to talk about how perception of risk influences risk-taking behavior," said Reyna, who has done similar research.

Fatalistic kids weren't more likely than others to die during the seven-year study; there were relatively few deaths, 94 out of more than 20,000 teens.

The researchers analyzed data from a nationally representative survey of kids in grades 7 to 12 who were interviewed three times between 1995 and 2002. Of 20,594 teens interviewed in the first round, 14.7 percent said they thought they had a good chance of dying before age 35. Subsequent interviews found these fatalistic kids engaged in more risky behavior than more optimistic kids.

The study suggests some kids overestimate their risks for harm; however, it also provides evidence that some kids may have good reason for being fatalistic.

Native Americans, blacks and low-income teens _ kids who are disproportionately exposed to violence and hardship _ were much more likely than whites to believe they'd die young.

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On the Net:

American Academy of Pediatrics: http://www.aap.org

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: http://www.cdc.gov

Comments

[Dubois651]

Poll results are the consequences of the spew of hatred from the right wing and the culture of fear generated by the Bush Administration.

When nobody believes in the possiblities of the future, despair is a consequence. If people will only change their way of thinking, then change is possible. Americans are ill-prepared for the realities of the economic conditions facing this nation. It seems as if the economy will get far worse in the near future. I believe the poor, are mostly unaffected by the recession, as they have learrned to survive under economic adversity. Likewise, the rich, will be able to rideout a depression, as they always have done before.

It is the middle class that has to come to terms with the reality that they are likely to wake up on New Year's Day in the middle of the new depression. These children have a better pulse on the chaos in America than the adults.

[historymatters]

"Native Americans, blacks and low-income teens _ kids who are disproportionately exposed to violence and hardship _ were much more likely than whites to believe they'd die young..."

For the most part, these aren't kids who check HuffPo every day, belong to the local young Democrats or Republicans club, and suffer from suburban ennui. They are kids who deal with gun violence, drug-related and gang-related violence, not having enough to eat, not having a clean and safe place to live, not having access to health care, etc. They don't have the same kind of middle-class mindset that's so prevalent among the HuffPo commenters. Their fear that they will die young is buttressed by witnessing drive-by shootings, death from alcohol poisoning or drug overdose, death from abuse, death from untreated appendicitis or abcessed teeth, death from fires and electrocutions in substandard housing, death from floods when levees break, etc.

If you have the means, I urge you to become involved in an organization like Big Brothers/Big Sisters to show these kids that what they see around them isn't all there is to life.

[JoeBlough]

Eight years of Bush/Cheney has set the foundation for this kind of thinking.

[hoosier96]

Well, no wonder kids think they're gonna die young. All they hear on the news is how the planet is going to be destroyed soon if we "don't do something about it immediately".

This global warming craze has got everyone thinking an apocalypse is eminent.

[TheGigaShadow]

Yeah, it's a "craze".

[historymatters]

whereas a long, slow, lingering death in which millions upon millions die slowly of famine, starvation, flooding, disease, and war is so much more preferable.

Global warming is not a "craze." Global warming is going to change every aspect of human life. The better prepared we are, the better we'll be able to face all the problems coming our way.

[hoosier96]

Stop! You're scaring the heck out of the kiddies.

[NeoStar9]

Kids having no fear or think "It won't happen to me" never really made much sense anyway. That conclusion always seemed off to me and idealistic in a way. As if they had gotten different results or additional results but didn't want to voice them. The 15% number as a result of this study is low I agree. It has most certainly has to be larger.

[metaphysicist]

the last time i check it was survival of the fittest

[SocialistDistortion]

A social darwinist, eh?

[dubster]

"Scientists once widely believed that teenagers take risks because they underestimate bad consequences and figure "it can't happen to me," the study authors say. The new research bolsters evidence refuting that thinking."

"Cornell University professor Valerie Reyna said the new study presents 'an even stronger case against the invulnerability idea.'"

Quite frankly the invulnerability idea still resonates and is incredibly valid if you ask me. When I was in high school I admittedly and unfortunately engaged in habitual reckless and careless behavior, i.e. copious amounts of drug use, drinking and driving, etc. However, I never did it because I was "fatalistic" or pessimistic or I believed that I was going to die young. I did it out of a combination of things first and foremost was indeed the invulnerability idea - the idea that nothing bad or negative was going to happen to me, coupled with the fact that I was obvious and unaware of the ramifications that could indeed occur. So this notion that because a minority of kids are "depressed" refutes the vulnerability idea is absurd.

Speaking of minorities: "Native Americans, blacks and low-income teens _ kids who are disproportionately exposed to violence and hardship _ were much more likely than whites to believe they'd die young." So what Hispanic kids weren't worthy of mention or study? And don't give me, that Hispanics are considered white, I know that, however whenever studies are concerned they explicitly separate the groups to give better insight and understanding.

[TJCole]

That's a reflection of the culture they have created for themselves along what they call "art ", with the help of the ghouls at MTV and Viacom and others who made gangsterism our national culture, and the one we have exported all over the world..!

[metaphysicist]

at one point JUST dancing to rock and roll was going to bring down the social graces of our fair society as well!!!...­we made it through those horrible times...wa­y to go AMERICA!!!

[TJCole]

Now they're dancing, while packing heat though...

[Snafu]

When you live in a world were the president and his republican party keep you afraid for 8 years of imagined and real enemies, and the fear from the left is a dying planet, kicking off before these nightmare scenarios come to pass seem almost preferred.

[Cosmic-Zantor]

Should journalists really be using such subjective words like "surprising" in their opening sentence to describe objective data?

This doesn't surprise me in the least. 15% seems small to me. It seems like common sense that a certain amount of people are just generally more pessimistic or cynical than the average joe. Frankly I'm surprised the number isn't higher.

I don't see how this is a big deal, and I especially don't see how it is remotely surprising.

[SocialistDistortion]

When you live in a fiercely militaristic and violent society, does it really surprise anyone that a growing number of teens think they won't live long lives?

[metaphysicist]

it is so EASY now...thin­k of the violent days of the golden hoard or the Romans even...we got it pretty easy in comparision

[SocialistDistortion]

Granted, but at the same time...in those days if you lived to be 30 you were considered a senior citizen.

And just because we have fewer large scale conflicts than say the Greeks or the Romans did, we are every bit as militaristic as they are. Think about it, since our country's birth, we've averaged a major war or military conflict every 20 years. That's a pretty violent society if you ask me.

[surfcitysteven]

Teens, I was one once so I know, do not have an accurate "time" sense. It is limited by their small amount of years on the planet. They think they have been alive along time. When I was a teen, the Beatles had been broken up for a whopping 15 years and I thought that was ancient history. Now, U2 has been around linger than my teenage employee has been alive. He thinks they are geezers and he is kind of right. It is a very narrow lense they look through at that age. And being a teen during the 8 years of the stupidest, most idiotic and evil president in our history surely didn't help their outlook.

[historymatters]

Good points!

[SantaFeConservative]

Do you really think Obama will be a two-termer? Eight years?

[nanjemoy]

I love Obama, but this is a funny barb.

[surfcitysteven]

You didn't notice that I made the reference to the "8 years" in the past tense when I put in the words "didn't help", did you? If I would have said "won't help" as meaning in the future, your attempt at a zinger would have made sense. Comedy and sarcasm work best when you don't have to change the originator's thought and sentence to suit your lack of wit.

[audadvnc]

The young can see the writing on the wall. Society's guardians are concerned about taking ALL THE MONEY, and sticking the rest of us with the tab. When you are growing up in a slave state, you don't have much reason to want to live a long and painful life.

[metaphysicist]

problem 1-you make the assumption they can read!!!

[surfcitysteven]

Both of you are ridiculous.

[DesertTruth]

Oh my god. It's been awhile since I was a teenager but I know that this is NOT new. I'm amazed that for thinking that way when I was in high school (really I was a switch about it) that I didn't do more stupid things myself. I mean.. c'mon, Rebel Without a Cause anyone?

[cocl]

As one who spent most of my childhood convinced I'd be dead before 20, let me say that if this article is a fair representation of what the study claims, the study has completely missed to ask the most basic question about what's the cause and what's the effect here. It is, of course, possible that there are children for whom the belief comes first, but taking it for granted seems a most unscientific approach. For me it certainly did not. For me the conviction and the suicidal tendencies vere both effects. The cause was hating my life and wanting more than anything to die. Far from "leading" me to dangerous behaviour, the fantasy that I'd die young anyway acted as a safety-valve, and made me less, not more, likely to actually do something drastic.

I'd say that these are mostly desperately unhappy kids, who don't particularly want to live long lives, and the very last thing you want to do is to convince them how unlikely they, in fact, are to die young. That might really trigger them to play with death! What needs to be done is to identify why they're unhappy, and then do something about it! Happy kids who want to live long lives rarely believe they'll die young, and they even more rarely do anything to invite such a death. Rather they fight against it. So they're not the ones we need to worry about.