US Suicide Rates Reached Record Levels Last Year According to New CDC Report

The recent suicide rate data is the highest in the US since 1941, according to the report.

The United State’s suicide rate reached its highest levels in over 80 years, according to new federal data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

According to the data, almost 50,000 Americans ended their lives last year, which was a 3% increase from 2021. However, this is from provisional data from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, and that number is likely to grow once the data is finalized, as pending causes of deaths for some death certificates may be ruled as suicides.

"Reporting of suicides in particular can be delayed due to investigations regarding the cause and circumstances surrounding the death," the authors of the report explained.

The rise in suicide rates is significantly smaller than the 4% spike which occurred from 2020 to 2021, however the growing rate is still a significant issue. And while rates did decrease significantly among younger people, they increased among older age groups.

Suicide rates decreased by 18% among those aged 10 to 14, 9% among those 15 to 24, and 2% among those aged 25 to 34. However, suicide rates increased by 3% among those aged 35 to 44, 5% among those 45 to 54, 9% among those aged 55 to 64, 3% for those aged 65 to 74, and increased by 5% for those aged 75 and older.

Men, who make up the majority of suicides each year, saw a 2% increase in suicides while women saw a 4% rise, but women’s suicide rate remined roughly the same as it has been for decades while men had the highest suicide rate in more than 50 years.

Men aged 75 and older also continued to take their own lives at the highest rate, (43.7% per 100,000).

According to the data, the suicide rates were highest among men who were American Indian and Alaska Native (roughly 40% per 100,000 deaths), and second-highest among white men (28%). American Indian and Alaska Native women, as well as white women, also had the highest rates of suicide for their gender. However, Black women had significantly lower rates of suicide (a little over 3%) than Black men (nearly 15%). Asians had the lowest rates of suicide among men (about 10%), while Hispanics had the lowest suicide rates among women (3%).

However, the suicide rates among American Indians and Alaska Natives was 5% lower in 2022 compared to 2021, and was the only racial group to experience a decline in rates. Yet this decrease was not seen as statistically significant, according to the CDC’s report.

While suicide rates among Americans have been steadily increasing since 2001, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a call to action in 2021 on a national strategy for suicide prevention. The year 2021 saw nearly a quarter of US high-schoolers considering suicide—a mental health fallout due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a hopeful sign, and a reminder that we must continue to implement interventions that we know can help people,” Christine Yu Moutier, chief medical officer for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said of the decrease in suicide rates among young people.

This most recent data shows that suicide rates in the US have reached their highest levels since 1941, the year that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the US declared war on Japan, officially entering World War II.