The knitted sculpture 'Winnie Pooh' by Patricia Waller, featuring the children's book character as a suicide victim, hangs in the 'Broken Heroes' exhibition at the Deschler Gallery on April 26, 2012 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo : Getty Images/Adam Berry)
A new federal data analysis claimed that suicide rates throughout the United States have reached the highest levels in the last three decades. The rise in suicide rate was witnessed across demographics, barring black males.
The increases were so widespread that they lifted the nation's suicide rate to 13 per 100,000 people, the highest since 1986. The rate rose by 2 percent a year starting in 2006, double the annual rise in the earlier period of the study. In all, 42,773 people died from suicide in 2014, compared with 29,199 in 1999.
The report found that more Americans in the age group of 10 to 74 have committed suicides between 1999 and 2014. The study was undertaken by examining death certificates of Americans over the 15-year period, according to the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention.
According to the report, the increase in suicide rate was especially steep for women. In addition, a large number of middle-aged Americans were victims of the rise in suicide rate. This has been a major reason for anguish among people whose suicide rates were either stable or declining since the 1950s. In fact, the suicide rate for middle-aged women, in the age group of 45 to 64 years, soared 63 percent during the period covered by the study.
On the other hand, suicide rate among middle-aged men rose by 43 percent - which is the steepest rise for males in any age group. In general, the suicide rate increased by 24 percent between 1999 and 2014,according to a study undertaken by the National Center for Health Statistics.
The study further pointed out that suicide rates among males belonging to the Pacific island and Asian descent rose by 38 percent during this period, while the suicide rate among Caucasian males increased by 28 percent during the same period. Compared to 30 suicides among white males in 1999, 48 among 100,000 white males took their own lives by 2014.
On the other hand, the suicide rate among young women, aged 10 to 14 years, tripled during the period examined in the study. Nevertheless, this rate, which is 1.7 young women per 100,000, was considerably lower compared to several other demographics that were examined during the study, New York Times reported.
According to the researchers, there could be various reasons for the spurt in the rate of suicides across the United States. One of the main reasons for the increase rate could be the possible refusal of psychiatrists to prescribe anti-depressants these days, as several of these drugs are known to augment the risk of suicide, particularly among children. Some of these changes can be attributed to the fear of lawsuits among psychiatrists.
In addition, socioeconomic conditions could be another major factor for the rise in suicide rate, especially among Pacific islanders and people of Asian descent. Researchers suggest that the economic recession of 2008 may also be partially responsible for an increase in self-inflicted deaths.
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