Key numbers
Fewer students said they felt sad most days than in 2022
The Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey asks middle and high school students four questions it groups as symptoms of depression. The broadest is whether, in the past year, they felt depressed or sad on most days, even if they felt OK sometimes. In Miami-Dade, 38.5% said yes in 2024, down from 50.1% in 2022. The other three questions fell too.
The statewide figure moved the same way, from 47.3% in 2022 to 40.7% in 2024, and to 35.9% in the 2026 statewide survey. County results for 2026 had not been published when we checked. The state’s own Miami-Dade report describes the same pattern: “Trend data for Miami-Dade County also show increased rates for symptoms of depression, followed by lower rates in 2024.”
Source: Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey. Miami-Dade figures are unweighted county samples; Florida figures are weighted statewide estimates.
| Survey question | Miami-Dade 2022 | Miami-Dade 2024 | Florida 2022 | Florida 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Felt depressed or sad most days in the past year | 50.1% | 38.5% | 47.3% | 40.7% |
| At times I think I am no good at all | 47.1% | 34.9% | 46.1% | 39.3% |
| Sometimes I think that life is not worth it | 32.6% | 21.6% | 33.3% | 26.9% |
| All in all, I am inclined to think that I am a failure | 29.9% | 21.7% | 30.7% | 27.0% |
Source: Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, Miami-Dade County data tables (2022 and 2024). Percent of middle and high school students answering yes. The top row asks about the past year; the other three are statements students agree or disagree with.
How Miami-Dade compares with Florida
In 2024, Miami-Dade’s figures were at or a little below the statewide figures on every depression and suicide question in the survey. That is worth reading with care. The county result comes from 985 students and is not weighted, and the state does not publish margins of error for county results, so a gap of a few points between Miami-Dade and Florida may be chance rather than a real difference. The drop since 2022 is much larger than that, and it matches the statewide trend.
Girls, boys, middle and high school
Girls in Miami-Dade said they felt depressed or sad most days far more often than boys: 49.8% compared with 27.1%. Girls answered yes more often than boys on each of the four questions.
| Survey question (Miami-Dade, 2024) | Girls | Boys | Middle school | High school |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Felt depressed or sad most days in the past year | 49.8% | 27.1% | 39.0% | 38.2% |
| At times I think I am no good at all | 44.1% | 25.6% | 37.5% | 33.0% |
| Sometimes I think that life is not worth it | 28.5% | 14.4% | 24.6% | 19.4% |
| All in all, I am inclined to think that I am a failure | 29.3% | 13.9% | 24.9% | 19.3% |
Source: Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, Miami-Dade County data tables, 2024. Subgroups are smaller (533 middle school and 452 high school students), so their figures are less precise.
Suicidal thoughts and behavior
If you need help right now
Call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, free, confidential and available 24/7, or chat at 988lifeline.org. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911. Innovative Counseling is an outpatient practice and does not provide emergency or after-hours crisis care.
In 2024, 10.6% of Miami-Dade students said they had seriously considered attempting suicide in the past 12 months, compared with 13.4% statewide. In Miami-Dade, as across Florida, middle school students answered yes more often than high school students (13.5% compared with 8.5%; statewide 14.8% and 12.4%).
| Past 12 months | Miami-Dade, all | Middle school | High school | Girls | Boys | Florida, all |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seriously considered attempting suicide | 10.6% | 13.5% | 8.5% | 14.8% | 6.3% | 13.4% |
| Made a suicide plan | 8.7% | 11.8% | 6.5% | 11.7% | 5.7% | 10.9% |
| Attempted suicide one or more times | 5.1% | 8.4% | 2.7% | 8.8% | 1.6% | 7.3% |
| Suicide attempt that needed medical care | 1.1% | 1.5% | 0.8% | 0.9% | 1.3% | 1.7% |
Source: Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, Miami-Dade County data tables, 2024. The survey replaced its suicide questions in 2023, so these figures cannot be compared with 2022.
Bullying
Being taunted or teased was the most common experience: 52.7% of Miami-Dade students said it had ever happened to them. About one in four, 24.6%, said they had been bullied online. 4.9% said they had skipped school because of bullying, compared with 9.2% statewide.
| Ever happened | Miami-Dade 2022 | Miami-Dade 2024 | Florida 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Was ever taunted or teased | 55.6% | 52.7% | 58.5% |
| Was ever kicked or shoved | 28.5% | 26.7% | 35.5% |
| Was ever cyberbullied | 28.7% | 24.6% | 29.0% |
| Skipped school because of bullying | 4.9% | 4.9% | 9.2% |
| Ever verbally bullied others | 30.4% | 29.9% | 30.9% |
| Ever physically bullied others | 16.6% | 15.7% | 17.5% |
| Ever cyberbullied others | 13.6% | 11.5% | 13.4% |
Source: Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, Miami-Dade County data tables (2022 and 2024) and Florida statewide results.
What this means for parents
- If your teen seems down a lot, many others feel the same way. More than a third of Miami-Dade students surveyed said they had felt sad on most days in the past year. A hard stretch is common, and it is still worth talking about.
- The trend is moving in a better direction. Fewer students in Miami-Dade and across Florida reported feeling this way in 2024 than in 2022, and the statewide figure fell again in 2026.
- Ask about life online, too. About one in four Miami-Dade students said they had been bullied online, which can be hard for a parent to see. Our article on social media and teen mental health covers cyberbullying and practical steps for parents.
- If you are worried about your teen’s safety, you can ask them directly. Our guide on how to ask your teen about suicide walks through what to say. In a crisis, call or text 988 at any time, or call 911 if someone is in immediate danger.
- If you are thinking about counseling, our teen therapy guide for parents explains how it works and how to bring it up with your teen, and our teen counseling page has the details of our service.
Method
- Source: the Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey (FYSAS), run by the Florida Department of Children and Families with other state agencies. In 2024 it surveyed students in grades 6 through 12 at randomly selected public middle and high schools in each participating county, in February and March.
- Miami-Dade figures are from the state’s Miami-Dade County data tables for 2024 (985 students) and 2022 (1,070 students). Florida figures are the weighted statewide results printed in the same tables, and the 2026 statewide figure is from the 2026 Statewide Tables.
- Why not the CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey: the CDC YRBS Explorer lists Miami-Dade school district results up to 2017 and none since, so it cannot show how students are doing now. FYSAS asks different questions, so its figures should not be compared with national YRBS figures.
- The download script, the script that reads every figure from the published tables, and a separate check script that confirms the figures against other state publications (the statewide tables, the state report’s county appendix and the Miami-Dade summary report) are kept with the site’s code.
Limits
- These are survey answers, not diagnoses. The survey calls its four questions symptoms of depression, but a student answering yes does not mean the student has depression.
- County results are unweighted and based on about 1,000 students, and the state does not publish county margins of error. Small differences, between years or between Miami-Dade and Florida, may be chance.
- Students who were absent on survey day, who attend private school or who are not in school are not included.
- The suicide questions changed in 2023, so there is no county comparison with earlier years for those questions.
Sources
- Florida Department of Children and Families, Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey: 2024 county and statewide reports (ZIP) and 2022 county and statewide reports (ZIP), Miami-Dade County data tables; 2026 Statewide Tables. Downloaded November 12, 2026.
- CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey Explorer, years available for Miami-Dade County, checked November 12, 2026.
Cite this study
The data is free to reuse under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 with credit and a link: download the CSV. More studies are on our research page.