LOS ANGELES, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Adolescents accounted for a larger share of suicides in more than a quarter of U.S. states in 2020, U.S. News and World Report reported on Monday citing a new study.

       Researchers examined suicide data across 14 states in the United States for 2015 to 2020, and found the proportion of overall suicides that occurred among young people aged 10 to 19 increased by 10 percent in 2020 compared with the average share over the pre-pandemic period of 2015 through 2019, the news outlet reported, based on the study published in JAMA Pediatrics, a peer-reviewed medical journal.

       Across the 14 states, adolescent suicides accounted for 6.5 percent of all suicides in 2020, compared with 5.9 percent for 2015 through 2019. Overall, though researchers did not describe it as a statistically significant increase, the total number of adolescent suicides across the states rose by 8 percent to 903 deaths in 2020, compared with an average of 836 for 2015 to 2019, the report added.

       Though the study only included some U.S. states, its data accounted for approximately a third of adolescents in the country and 32 percent of all U.S. residents, said the report, noting that the study offered the latest evidence of a growing mental health crisis among the nation's youth, which experts say was mounting prior to COVID-19 but has been accelerated by the pandemic.