An annual study conducted by the Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention at the University of Hong Kong is sounding alarm bells on teenage suicide.

Latest figures released by the centre on Tuesday showed the suicide rate in Hong Kong for 2023 dropped to 13.6 from 13.7 in 2022, meaning that for every 100,000 people 13.6 took their own lives.

But the centre noted the suicide rate among teenagers under 15 had increased to 2.9 from 0.9, and the number even reached 4.2 when looking at teenage girls.

Lisa Ho, a clinical psychologist from the centre said this is probably due to girls simultaneously having to handle the pressure that comes from puberty as well as the resumption of face-to-face teaching.

“Our speculation is the crossover with the female hormones during the entering of puberty and at that time, they started to have face-to-face schooling again and they are encountering more interpersonal stress and academic stress,” she said.

“So we speculated that it would be because of the fluctuations of oestrogen and also other female hormones that may contribute to the mood fluctuations during that time for female students.”

The centre’s head Professor Paul Yip said the issue of suicide among youngsters is something the entire world has had to face after the pandemic.

“So I think what we are dealing with now is a long COVID problem. I think the disruption of the school does have some negative impact on social development,” he said.

With the new school term just beginning, Prof Yip appealed to schools to give more time and space to students to adjust to the new curriculum and let them cultivate relationships among peers.

Meanwhile, the study also identified Kwun Tong and Kowloon City as teenage suicide hotspots.

Kowloon East DAB lawmaker Frankie Ngan said young people in those two districts were not receiving sufficient mental health support and faced many family problems.

"First of all, the proportion of young people in Kwun Tong is relatively low so that the related resources from the government are quite low actually. And the second thing is Kwun Tong is a poor community,” he said.

“And they live in public housing and also their living environment is so crowded so that their family relationship is not good enough... also, Kowloon City is very similar to Kwun Tong.”