Improvements in adolescent mental health are noted in the 2025 CDC survey, yet persistent disparities for girls and absence of LGBTQ+ data highlight ongoing challenges in addressing youth distress.
Teen mental health in the United States showed signs of improvement in 2025, but the latest federal data also suggests the crisis is far from over for many adolescents, especially girls. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said persistent sadness or hopelessness fell to 33% among high school students, down from 40% in 2023 and 42% in 2021, while the share seriously considering suicide dropped to 14% from 20% two years earlier.
Even so, the burden remains heavy for female students. The CDC said 43% of teenage girls still reported persistent sadness in 2025, alongside 29% describing poor mental health, 18% saying they had seriously considered suicide and 15% reporting a suicide plan. That is an improvement from the 2021 peak, but it still leaves girls far more likely than boys to report distress. Among male students, persistent sadness was 24%.
The report, based on the 2025 Youth Risk Behaviour Survey of more than 20,000 high school students, also pointed to broader gains beyond mental health. The share of students who played on a sports team rose to 58% from 52% in 2023, and more teenagers reported eating fruit and vegetables daily and drinking water regularly. Social media use, by contrast, remained largely unchanged at 36% for hourly-or-more use.
The CDC’s findings fit a longer trend documented in its earlier youth health reports. In 2023, the agency said 4 in 10 students felt persistent sadness or hopelessness, 2 in 10 seriously considered suicide and nearly 1 in 10 attempted suicide. A JAMA analysis of those results noted that female and LGBTQ+ students faced higher levels of mental health strain than their peers, with LGBTQ+ adolescents reporting especially elevated suicide risk.
That makes one absence in the new report particularly notable: the CDC’s 2025 edition did not include separate LGBTQ-specific data, unlike previous surveys. Researchers and advocates say that leaves a major gap in understanding whether the headline improvement is reaching one of the groups most affected by the youth mental health crisis. Without that detail, the overall recovery is encouraging, but incomplete.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical judgment, advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
