What just happened?
Suicides in the U.S. reached their highest number ever in 2022, according to new government data. Suicides are more common now than at any time since data began to be collected at the dawn of World War II.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released the latest provisional estimates for suicide deaths in the United States in 2022. After declining in 2019 and 2020, suicide deaths increased by approximately 5 percent in the United States in 2021. The provisional estimates released indicate suicide deaths further increased in 2022, rising from 48,183 deaths in 2021 to an estimated 49,449 deaths in 2022, an increase of approximately 2.6 percent.
What exactly constitutes suicide?
The medical definition of suicide is death caused by an intentional act of self-harm. (The government data doesn’t include medically assisted suicides in the states in which it’s legal.)
What distinguishes a suicide attempt, gesture, and ideation?
Suicide attempt, gesture, and ideation are terms used to categorize and describe different aspects and intensities of suicidal thoughts and behaviors.
Suicidal ideation refers to thoughts about, or an unusual preoccupation with, suicide. It doesn’t necessarily involve any concrete plans or actions to end one’s life. Examples include making statements or having thoughts such as “I wish I were dead” or “I wish I could disappear forever.”
A suicide gesture is a self-inflicted, nonlethal, often ambiguous act or behavior that appears to be self-harming or might suggest the individual wants to die but where the intent to die isn’t clear. Such a gesture is often a feigned attempt at taking one’s life, with the hope he or she will be found in time and saved by the discoverer. Examples include taking a small number of pills and then immediately informing someone about it, or superficial cutting without an intent to die.
A suicide attempt is an act or behavior where an individual genuinely intends to end his or her life but survives, either due to external intervention or the lethal method not resulting in death. Examples include overdosing on medication with the intent to die, jumping from a height, or using a firearm.
Although gesture and attempt are often used interchangeably, some clinicians believe the former term should be abandoned since it can be dismissive of a realistic intent to commit self-harm.
How many people in the U.S. commit suicide each year?
According to the CDC, based on the provisional data from 2022, suicide was one of the leading causes of death in the U.S., claiming the lives of over 49,449 Americans in 2022.
How common is suicide?
The CDC estimates that in 2021, 12.3 million adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.5 million made a plan to commit suicide, and 1.7 million attempted suicide. On average, one person in the U.S. dies from suicide about every 11 minutes.
What are the most common methods of suicide?
More than half of all suicides involve a firearm (55 percent). Another one in four (26 percent) are the result of suffocation or hanging. About 12 percent are by poisoning, and 8 percent are from other methods.
Who commits suicide more often, men or women?
The suicide rate among males in 2021 was approximately four times higher than the rate among females. Males make up 50 percent of the population but nearly 80 percent of suicides.
While men are more likely to die from suicide, women are more likely to attempt suicide. There are on average 3.3 male deaths by suicide for each female death by suicide. But there are three female suicide attempts for each male attempt.
Men are more likely to use deadlier methods, such as firearms or suffocation, while women are more likely than men to attempt suicide by poisoning.
What ethnic or racial groups are most likely to commit suicide?
White Americans are the group with the greatest number of total suicides (37,459), accounting for 76 percent of all suicides in the U.S. in 2022.
During that year, 5,120 Hispanic Americans, 3,825 black Americans, 1,458 Asian Americans, 681 multiracial Americans, 650 American Indian or Alaska Natives, and 95 Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders took their own lives.
The racial or ethnic groups with the highest rates in 2021 were non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native people and non-Hispanic white people.
What age groups are most likely to commit suicide?
People age 85 and older have the highest rates of suicide (22.4 per hundred thousand).
Those aged 75–84 had rates that were similar to the 25–34 range (19.6 and 19.5). All other age groups had rates that ranged from 15.3 to 18.2, with the exception of 10-to-14-year-olds, who had a rate of 2.8 per hundred thousand.
In which states are suicide rates the highest and lowest?
The six states with the highest suicide rates in 2021 were Wyoming (32.3 for every hundred thousand people), Montana (32.0), Alaska (30.8), New Mexico (25), South Dakota (23.2), and Colorado (22.8).
The six states with the lowest suicide rates were California (10.1), Connecticut (10.0), Maryland (9.7), Massachusetts (8.0), New York (7.0), and New Jersey (7.1).
What is the Christian perspective on suicide?
From a Christian perspective, suicide is sinful and wrong for the following reasons:
Suicide is a sin against God as the Creator and Sustainer of life. It rejects God’s sovereignty and usurps his prerogative in regard to life and death (cf. Job 12:10).
Suicide is a violation of the sixth commandment (cf. Ex. 20:13; Deut. 5:17).
Suicide disregards the image of God and the sanctity of human life (cf. Gen. 1:26–27; 9:5–6).
Suicide is poor stewardship of one’s body (cf. 1 Cor. 6:19–20).
Suicide overlooks the value of human suffering (cf. Rom. 5:3–5; 8:28; 2 Cor. 4:17–18; 12:10).
Suicide demonstrates misdirected love and is injurious to others (cf. Matt. 22:36–39; Eph. 5:29).
While suicide is sinful and wrong, those who trust in Christ cannot be cut off from his love and forgiveness by causing their own death. Suicide is an issue for which Christians ought to have compassion, helping those suffering make sense of their despair (Heb. 4:15) and taking steps to prevent suicide.
What can we do to help people who are contemplating suicide?
The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention and the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline suggest five steps to help safeguard people from the risk of suicide and support them when in crisis:
Ask: Asking and talking about suicide may reduce rather than increase suicidal ideation.
Help keep them safe: Reducing a suicidal person’s access to lethal means is an important part of suicide prevention. Try to get your loved one to seek immediate help from his doctor or the nearest hospital emergency room. Remove any access he may have to firearms or other potential tools for suicide, including medications. Call 911 or the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.
Be there: Increasing someone’s connectedness to others and limiting her isolation has shown to be a protective factor against suicide.
Help them connect: Individuals who called the 988 Lifeline were significantly more likely to feel less depressed, less suicidal, less overwhelmed, and more hopeful by the end of calls.
Follow up: After you’ve connected a person experiencing thoughts of suicide with the immediate support systems he needs, following up with him to see how he’s doing can help increase his feelings of connectedness and support. There’s evidence that even a simple form of reaching out can potentially reduce that person’s risk for suicide.
The Gospel Coalition