White teenagers are still more likely to commit suicide than blacks.
In the report, researchers cite no conclusive cause of the rising suicide rate but say that since many more African Americans are being reared in upwardly mobile families, more of them also may be experiencing the stresses such an environment can create. In 1980, the suicide rate for young whites was 157 percent greater than it was for young blacks, according to the report. Today, it's 42 percent greater. The suicide rate of African Americans between the ages of 10 and 19 has increased by 114 percent since 1980, the report found . The largest increase, by far, has occurred in the South, which the report defined to include Maryland, Virginia and the District.