Contradicting claims that long-term mental health troubles have made young adults the nation’s leading group for suicide, the latest Centers for Disease Control tabulations show that trend was temporary and accompanied by the COVID pandemic. Suicide and self-inflicted deaths have now returned to being a middle-aged crisis.
Here are the first and second leading age groups by suicide rate over the last six years:
2018: 55-59, 50-54
2019: 55-59, 45-49
2020: 30-34, 25-29
2021: 25-29, 20-24
2022: 50-54, 30-34*
2023: 55-59, 35-39*
(Source: CDC)
The CDC lists no more deaths in 2022 (out of 3,279,528 tabulated and reported) and only 48,035 deaths (less than 2% of 3,088,797 reported) in 2023 remaining to be added. Totals will change slightly as a few more deaths from slow-reporting jurisdictions arrive and provisional counts become final counts, but not nearly enough to shift the order of entire age groups.
Unless some radical anomaly occurs in finalizing 2023-24 numbers, suicide rates appear to be returning to middle-aged dominance. But there is another nuance. Age 30-39 may becoming a second node, for reasons unknown.
Suicide is the main officially-determined form of self-destructive death, but there is another, larger one that also is self-inflicted and involves self-destructive behavior: overdose of non-prescribed drugs and of alcohol. Here is the same trend for the two leading age groups for overdose death rates:
2018: 35-39, 30-34
2019: 35-39, 30-34
2020: 35-39, 30-34
2021: 35-39, 40-44
2022: 35-39, 40-44
2023: 40-44, 35-39
Again, provisional 2022-23 figures will change when finalized, though probably not by much. The above immediate overdose deaths exclude use of legally prescribed drugs, drug suicides, and deaths from long-term drug/alcohol abuse.
There are some good indications that both the suicide and overdose rates declined among the teenage and 20-age populations but rose substantially for the 30-age, 40-age, and 50-age groups after 2021.
Suicide rates in 2022 and 2023 for ages 50-59 are 10% higher, and total self-inflicted suicide and overdose death rates 57% higher, than for age 20-29, the CDC now reports. So, we might want to hold off declaring that young ages are taking over the self-destructive categories until we have better, longer-term data.
The temporary 2020-21 spike in age 20-29 suicides coinciding with the COVID pandemic abated in 2022 as middle-aged suicides rose, and appears to have continued to fall in 2023. That doesn’t mean these sub-trends should be ignored. Scientists should examine how pandemic stresses boosted young-age suicidality and post-pandemic factors increased middle-aged suicide.
Overall, as Gen Z grew up from 2000 through 2022, self-inflicted suicide/overdose deaths rose 68% faster among ages 50-59 (up 54.0 annual deaths per 100,000 population) than ages 20-29 (32.1). Among both age groups, self-inflicted death rates have risen faster to higher levels among low-education and conservative-state populations. Fixation only on social media and young people is obscuring these far larger trends.
Excellent work as usual, Mike!