Health Services Use of Low-Income Youths Who Died by Suicide

Investigators from multiple institutions conducted a case-control study to compare clinical conditions and health care services among children 10–18 years old who died by suicide to those of living controls. Cases were children and adolescents from 16 US states who were enrolled in Medicaid and died by suicide between 2009 and 2013. Review of death certificates was used to identify these cases. Up to 10 controls were matched to each case on sex, race, ethnicity, state of residence, and age. Medicaid databases were reviewed, and information on all mental health (MH) and physical health (PH) visits in the 6-month period before the date of death (index date) were abstracted for cases and their matching controls. Visits were categorized as …