Decline in age-adjusted suicide rate from 2018 to 2020 followed by increases in 2021 and 2022
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, Sept. 26, 2024 (HealthDay News) — The age-adjusted suicide rate increased in 2021 and 2022, following a decline from 2018 to 2020, reaching 14.2 per 100,000 standard population in 2022, according to a September data brief published by the National Center for Health Statistics.
Matthew F. Garnett, M.P.H., and Sally C. Curtin, from the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland, used mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System to present final suicide rates from 2002 through 2022 by sex, age, and means of suicide.
The researchers found that the age-adjusted suicide rate increased between 2002 and 2018, then decreased through 2020 (14.2 to 13.5 deaths per 100,000 standard population in 2018 and 2020, respectively) and increased to 14.1 and 14.2 in 2021 and 2022, respectively. For women aged 25 years and older, declines in suicide rates between 2018 and 2020 were followed by a general increase between 2020 and 2022. Between 2020 and 2022, rates decreased for males aged 10 to 14 and 15 to 24 years and increased in older age groups. In 2022, firearm-related suicide was the leading means of suicide for females (2.0 per 100,000), with rates increasing since 2007, and for males (13.5 per 100,000), with rates increasing since 2006.
“The rate in 2022 (14.2), which was the same as the rate in 2018, marks the highest age-adjusted suicide rate in the United States since 1941,” the authors write.
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