Suicide was the leading cause of violent death in the United States accounting for 14 834 (65.6%) of violent deaths in 2014, according to a recent report from the CDC. The findings are the latest from the agency’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), which included 18 states in 2014. The report provides a snapshot of the circumstances behind the roughly 22 000 violent deaths that occurred in those states that year “Public health authorities require accurate, timely, and comprehensive surveillance data to better understand and ultimately prevent the occurrence of violent deaths in the United States,” wrote lead author Katherine Fowler, PhD, a behavioral scientist at the CDC, in the report. Across racial/ethnic groups, only American Indian and Alaska Native people and white people had higher than average suicide rates (19.1 and 17 per 100 000 compared with 13.9 per 100 000 overall). Overall, the suicide rate was more than 3 times higher among men than women. Suicide deaths were most often preceded by mental and physical health problems, intimate partner conflicts, substance abuse, or a crisis in the 2 weeks prior to death or anticipation of such problems. Firearms remained the chief means of violent deaths. These included 144 unintentional firearm fatalities, with handguns accounting for 59.7% of these deaths. Most unintentional gun deaths occurred when individuals were playing with it, cleaning it, or showing it to others...
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", language="en", issn="0098-7484", doi="10.1001/jama.2018.1699", url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.1699" }