Suicide rates rise sharply in the US, figures show

After a nearly consistent decline in the last decades of the 20th century, suicide rates in the United States have risen sharply for both men and women in all age groups under 75 years, according to a report from the US National Center for Health Statistics.1

The report found that from 1999 through to 2014 the age adjusted suicide rate increased 24%—from 10.5 to 13 per 100 000 population. It rose at an average rate of around 1% each year from 1999 to 2006, after which it accelerated to 2% a year from 2006 through to 2014.

Suicide rates among men were more than three times higher than among women—20.7 per 100 000 for men compared with 5.8 per 100 000 for women. However the percent increase among women from 1999 through to 2014 was far greater than that seen in men: 45% for women compared with 16% for men. As a result, the suicide rate ratio between genders shrank from 4.5 to 3.6 from 1999 to 2014.

Suicide rates for women remained highest among those aged 45 to 64 for whom the rate rose from 6 per 100 000 to 9.8 per 100 000 which was the second largest rise seen among any group. The largest increase was seen among adolescent females aged 10 to 14, although the numbers were small, rising from 50 suicides in 1999 to 150 in 2014, resulting in a rate of 1.5 per 100 000 in 2014.

Although the suicide rate fell 8% among men over age 75, this group continued to have the highest suicide rate, 38.8 per 100 000. Men aged 45 to 65 had the second highest suicide rate for males in 2014 and had the largest percent increases (43%) in rates, rising from 20.8 in 1999 to 29.7 in 2014.

A firearm was used in 55% of male suicides, while poisoning was the most common method among women, accounting for 34% of female suicide deaths. For both men and women death from suffocation, such as hanging, accounted for one in four suicides in 2014, up from one in five in 1999.