KEY POINTS:
The emergence of suicide among 10- to 14-year-olds is of "extreme concern" and efforts to reduce New Zealand's high suicide rate must address this age group, an independent committee has warned.
The Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee highlighted the worrying suicide trend in its latest yearly report to the Minister of Health.
Using data from 2002 to 2004, the committee found that more than 10 per cent of all deaths in the 10 to 14-year age group were due to suicide.
Suffocation, including hanging, was the method used in two-thirds of the suicides.
There was a total of two suicides in the age group in 2002, but that grew to six in 2003 and nine in 2004.
Firearms were used to inflict two suicides in the age group in 2004 - after not appearing in the statistics in the two previous years.
The committee said that the deaths raised a number of issues, including the need to ensure monitoring of suicide trends in this age group, and to address the problem.
It intended to write to relevant groups, including the All Ages Suicide Prevention Strategy Group, about the issue.
The committee also noted that the rate of Maori suicide in all age groups was twice that of other groups.
The Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee is an independent group, although its members are appointed by the Health Minister.
It is chaired by paediatrics professor Barry Taylor and is made up of experts in the field of child and youth health.
Aside from suicide, the committee noted there was a "persistently high" Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI) rate among Maori and Pacific New Zealanders.
That was despite education campaigns targeting safe sleeping practices, such as babies sleeping on their back, the avoidance of maternal smoking, no bed sharing when the mother is a smoker, and avoiding covering a baby's face.
The committee recommended that the Ministry of Health evaluate its SUDI prevention messages, and said strategies needed to be specifically developed for getting the messages to the Maori and Pacific com-munities.
National's spokesman for policy on children, Paul Hutchison, said yesterday the committee's overall report showed that effective child policy needed "urgent profile-raising".
