What to Make of the Recent Rise in Suicide Deaths
For the first time in two years, suicide deaths have risen. Rates have increased most dramatically for men. Source for image: TED
Content Warning: This article discusses and relates to issues regarding suicide and suicidal thoughts.
The issue of suicide can be a difficult conversation to publicly and sensitively address. Even so, given trends of suicide deaths in the United States, it is an important and vital dialogue to have. Sadly, almost 50,000 people died of suicide in the United States last year. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has reported that suicide rates in 2021 rose for the first time in two years. Collective events of the past few years potentially help to explain this reversal of decline. The global COVID-19 pandemic brought with it economic and emotional precarity that was difficult to navigate for many individuals. Although the pandemic is a possible factor for the immediate rise in suicide rates, trends over the past few decades paint a clearer and more complicated picture. While trends in suicide declined in 2018, the period was preceded by almost 20 years of significant increase – almost 31 percent between the years 2000 and 2018. The marginal drop in the number and rate of suicide seen for the last two years was still not significant enough to negate this rapid growth since the early 2000’s.
Breaking down CDC data reveals stark disparities between different demographic groups. For this period, men had the overall largest increase in the number and rate of suicide – a 3 percent rise compared to 2 percent for their female counterparts. In addition, early data from 2021 reveal that men died of suicide at almost 4 times that of women.
Further examination shows that other groups are at particular risk for suicide as well. Veterans and LGBTQ+ individuals all display high rates of suicide death. Veterans have an adjusted suicide rate that is 52 percent higher than the non-veteran population, while almost 25 percent of self-identifying queer high school students reported attempting or seriously contemplating suicide within the past twelve months.
The exact cause of this reversal in suicide rates is difficult to ascertain, but the national and global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are sure to factor into the equation. Fractured supply chains and increased unemployment brought about economic shocks that reverberated throughout the world. Making the situation worse, the social isolation created by government lockdowns exacerbated financial precarity and preexisting mental health issues for many.
Many experts feared that the economic fallout of the pandemic would cause rates to soar exponentially, but thankfully the data doesn’t appear to show this to be the case. While rates did rise somewhat, the increase in 2021 essentially stabilized to pre-2018 levels. This, however, is not to be taken lightly as almost 50,000 people died of suicide in 2021 alone. In fact, it is the second leading cause of death for young people aged 10 to 34 years of age, and middle-aged adults – 35 to 64 – represent 47 percent of all suicide deaths in the United States.
The sheer fact that rates rose 31 percent from 2000 to 2018 points to a larger issue at stake. Somewhat coinciding with this rise around the turn of the millennium has been an overall increase in income inequality and deindustrialization in the United States. As economic modes of production have shifted, manufacturing has declined, resulting in job loss and stagnating or falling wages for lower-skilled and less-educated workers. Experts have attributed the rise in so-called, diseases of despair – “substance abuse, alcohol dependency, and suicidal thought and behaviors” – to this economic decline. One study estimated that the diagnosis of these conditions increased by almost 70 percent between 2009 and 2018.
Moreover, the fact that men make up the vast majority of suicide deaths points to another contributing variable, the impacts of traditional patriarchal gender norms. While most conversations around the patriarchy and strict binary gender norms focus on issues relating to the harmful effects on women, experts contend that there are adverse impacts on men as well. Psychologists and social scientists contend that stereotypical gender norms disconnect men from their emotions, a deeply unhealthy behavior. According to this dichotomy, men are supposed to be independent, strong-willed, unemotional, logical, and confident.
Making this matter worse, research shows that men are less likely than women to seek help from mental health professionals. Therapist Terry Real explains that these constraints on male emotional expression disconnect men from their emotions while framing seeking help as a weakness. Related to the adherence to gender norms is the fact that men also tend to form close friendships with other men less often than women with other women. This increased social isolation and detachment from one’s own emotions can be a potentially insidious combination. Another statistic within the new 2021 CDC reporting shows that the largest increase for any group was among males aged 15 to 24 – an 8 percent increase. Given pandemic lockdowns shifted education instruction online, the increased social isolation among young men may have contributed to this increase.
Also related to stereotypical gender norms is the traditional idea that men should be the financial breadwinner in the home. Since the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in economic instability, and increasing unemployment, it is not a giant leap to connect this economic precarity to men’s feeling of financial responsibility and increased suicide deaths for men. In addition, widening the view and scope, if economic transitions of the past few decades have also resulted in increased economic instability, especially with the loss of large manufacturing employment, this potentially helps to explain the rise in suicide deaths and the extreme gap between men and women.
According to a Kaiser Family Foundation national survey, 35 percent of individuals 18 to 29 years old said that their mental state frequently makes it difficult to engage in work, school, or other life activities. Moreover, 90 percent of respondents believe that the U.S. is facing a mental health crisis. The CDC has, likewise, stressed that suicide is a “serious public health problem” and has directed efforts to combat its rise.
While the CDC stresses various strategies for prevention the organization has formulated a four-pronged strategic plan. The plan emphasizes four areas of suicide prevention: data, science, action, and collaboration. The goal is to use new and existing data to better understand and monitor behaviors associated with suicide, identifying scientific risk factors so that actions can be a collaboration between communities, partners, and the CDC. The plan highlights a number of subsequent strategies:
Strengthen economic support.
Strengthen access to and delivery of suicide care.
Create protective environments.
Promote connectedness.
Teach coping and problem-solving skills.
Identify and support people at risk.
Lessen harms and prevent future risk.
In general, the CDC recommends a comprehensive public health approach that identifies potential contributing factors to suicide and groups that are most impacted by those factors. Given the trends of the past few decades and many of the potential explanations for its overall rise, suicide deaths do indeed pose a public and personal health crisis for the United States. Suicide rates represent a breakdown of economic and emotional stability and a failure of social structures to adequately reconcile the the effects of that instability in an uncertain world.
With about one death to suicide every 11 minutes, an estimated 12 million adults seriously contemplating suicide, and almost a million people attempting suicide every year, the impact of these numbers extends out much further than the individuals at risk. Families, children, friends, and overall social and economic life are likewise affected by this public health phenomenon.
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicide or suicidal thoughts or a mental health crisis, please call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 800–273–8255 to connect with a trained counselor, or visit 988lifeline.org.