Suicide was the tenth leading cause of death in the country in 2016, accounting for the deaths of nearly 45,000 Americans over the age of 10.
The CDC report does not conclude exactly why suicide rates have risen so much and so consistently across the country. But, when the information was available, the agency did break down the deaths by method and by circumstances preceding the suicide, suggesting a few noteworthy trends.
The detailed information comes from the National Violent Death Reporting System, which collects data from death certificates, coroner and medical examiner reports, and law enforcement in 27 states.
Nearly half of the suicides reported through this system in 2015 involved firearms, making this the most common method. The CDC, meanwhile, has been hampered in its ability to study guns as a public health issue because of restrictions placed by Congress.
Less than 5 percent of the suicides reported in 2015 involved opioids, despite huge numbers of people dying of accidental opioid overdoses. The distinction between intentional suicide and accidental overdose is not always clear, doctors writing in the New England Journal of Medicine have argued, because individuals’ “motivation to live might be eroded by addiction.” Suicide may even be undercounted, if some intentional overdoses are being classified as accidental deaths.
Forty-six percent of people who died by suicide had a diagnosed mental condition. Common contributing factors to suicide in 2015 also include: a relationship problem (42 percent), a recent or upcoming crisis (29 percent), substance abuse (28 precent), a physical health problem (22 percent), and a job or financial problem (16 percent). The numbers do not add up to 100 percent because, as the CDC report emphasizes, “suicide is rarely caused by any single factor, but rather, is determined by multiple factors.”
For more read the full of article at The Atlantic
