Citation

Curtin SC, Brown KA, Jordan ME. NCHS Data Brief 2022; (450): 1-7.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, United States National Center for Health Statistics)

DOI

10.15620/cdc:121798

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Suicide rates in the United States have traditionally been higher for non-Hispanic White than non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic people (1). However, provisional data demonstrated that patterns have changed recently with rates declining for non-Hispanic White people but increasing for non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic people (2). This report presents suicide rates from 2000 to 2020 using final data for non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic people, for the total population and for the three leading methods in 2020 (firearms, suffocation, and poisoning).

Key findings:

= After increasing between 2000 and 2018, age-adjusted suicide rates for non-Hispanic White people declined from 2018 (18.1 per 100,000 population) to 2020 (16.9), whereas rates increased between 2000 and 2020 for non-Hispanic Black (7.8) and Hispanic (7.5) people.

= Firearm suicide rates for non-Hispanic White people declined from 2018 to 2020, whereas rates for non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic people continued to increase.

= After increasing at a faster pace compared with Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black people through 2018, suffocation suicide rates declined for non-Hispanic White people through 2020.

= Poisoning suicide rates were stable over the period for non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic people (ranging from 0.6 to 0.8) but declined for non-Hispanic White people (from 2.6 to 2.1) since 2017.

Language: en