On Wednesday, the CDC released devastating data that 2022 was the highest year of suicide deaths ever recorded in America. The National Center for Health Statistics recorded roughly 50,000 suicides last year, which was up 2.6 percent from the prior year, at a rate of 14.3 per 100,000 Americans.
Men 75 and older had the highest rate of suicide in 2022, at nearly 44 per 100,000 people. According to the data, aging adults are at the highest risk of suicide due to loneliness, bereavement and declining health.
National Review reports Suicide rates for young people returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2022 after soaring in 2021 amid the social isolation and financial stress caused by the pandemic and resulting lockdowns. Suicide rates for children aged 10-14 declined by 18 percent in 2022, and rates for young people aged 15-24 declined by 9 percent.
Men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women, although women are more likely than men to have suicidal thoughts. Males make up half of the U.S. population, and they account for nearly 80 percent of suicides.
Women aged 55-64 are at the highest risk of suicide. For women 75 and older, poisoning (including drug overdose) is the leading mechanism of suicide, followed by firearms and suffocation.
National Review adds that suicides play a major role in flattening the U.S. life expectancy curve, along with drug overdoses and homicides. Chronic illnesses like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are still the leading factors holding back America’s life expectancy rates, which had been steadily increasing for a century until 2010, when the curve began to flatten.
