Suicide Rate Has Increased 24 Percent Since 1999 in the U.S.

For some time, public health experts have expressed concern over the growing rate of suicide, and a new report from the U.S Centre for Disease Control and Prevention says the public health concern may be even worse than most think. On Friday, the CDC announced rates of suicide have increased 24 percent within the past decade and a half. In 1999, there were 10.5 suicides per 100,000 people, compared with 2014, when the number rose to 13 per 100,000.
The most dramatic increase was seen among girls aged 10 to 14; in a decade and half, the rate of suicide in this age group went up 200 percent. Teen boys had the lowest rate of all age groups but the second-largest increase, 37 percent.In 2016,it has increased.
Rates of suicide increased 43 percent between 1999 and 2014 among middle-aged adults.As seen in many reports, men were much more likely to take their life than women; in 2014, the age-adjusted rate for men was three times higher than for women.
The report also highlights trends in suicide methods. Men were most likely to use guns (55.4 percent), while poisoning was the most commonly chosen method for women (34.1 percent). The number of suicide deaths that resulted from suffocation also rose in the past 15 years, for both sexes.
“If we saw numbers like this for any other medical condition, there would be an immediate declaration of a medical emergency. This study should be a call to action to improve access to care, reduce stigma and improve treatment by funding research,” Dr. Jeffrey Borenstein, president and CEO of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, who was not involved in the report, said in an email statement.