The number of suicides has been increasing for decades, peaking at 48,344 in 2018. While many expected the pandemic to trigger a spike in suicides, 2020 saw a second straight year of decline, to 45,979.
The slump appears to end in 2021 with a total of 48,183 suicides.
Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, says previous pandemics, wars and natural disasters have also seen a temporary decline in suicide rates as communities mobilize to weather the crisis. .
Collective emergencies bring “psychological agility and resilience to work against a common enemy.” “If it weakens, the suicide rate will pick up. In fact, that’s what we feared. At least in 2021 it happened.”
CDC’s Dr. Stone says this also happened during the 1918 flu pandemic. “In the long term, some of the people hit hardest by the crisis will continue to grapple with the effects of the crisis, which may have exacerbated existing inequalities,” she said.
The data also revealed good news. Overall, he saw a 12.4% decrease in suicide rates among older Americans from age 45 to her 64, and a significant drop in suicide rates among whites, Hispanics, and Asians in that age group.
According to Dr. Moutier, this positive trend was sometimes paralleled by a negative trend in younger age groups. “What’s changing in terms of environment, access to lethal means, culture?” she said. “It seems that there are various subcultures depending on the generation and the community you live in.”
One of the factors contributing to the rising suicide rate among young people is the “significant weakening of mental health response systems,” which makes it difficult to care for children and adolescents at risk. It’s getting very difficult, said Mitch Prinstein, America’s chief science officer. Psychological Society.
