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A study by CUNY SPH researchers suggests that U.S. high school students who are bullied at school have substantially higher odds of attempting suicide than peers who are not bullied, with bullied girls facing the greatest risk.
For the study, published in JAMA Open Network, the researchers used 2023 data from the national Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which surveys students in all 50 states about health risks and experiences.
Among 20,103 students, 19.2% said they had been bullied on school property and 9.5% reported at least one suicide attempt in the past year. Bullying was most frequently reported by younger students, girls, LGBQ+ youth, and transgender students than by their peers.
After accounting for age, sex, race and ethnicity, sexual identity, and gender identity, students who experienced bullying had 3.58 times the adjusted odds of a suicide attempt compared with those who were not bullied. When the researchers examined differences by sex, bullied girls had almost six times higher odds of attempting suicide compared to non-bullied boys.
“While evidence-based programs exist to address bullying and adolescent suicide separately, few school-based interventions target both together,” says Khushboo Agarwal, the study’s lead author and a 2025 alumna of CUNY SPH’s MPH program in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. “The findings suggest an urgent need for integrated school approaches that address bullying, mental health, and the particular vulnerability of girls who are bullied.”
Because the study relied on self-reported survey data and did not measure bullying severity or include adolescents who died by suicide, the authors caution that some risks may be underestimated. Even so, the results provide important evidence to guide schools, clinicians, and policymakers seeking to reduce youth suicide attempts linked to bullying.
