Suicide Rate Unchanged In 2005

I've not seen this reported elsewhere, but the CDC's annual mortality report is out and it shows that the suicide rate in the US for 2005 remained unchanged from 2004 at 11.0 deaths per 100,000 people (see page 29 of this 2.2 MB pdf), or 32,637 people. Preliminary reports last year suggested that there would be a slight decrease in 2005, so this news is disappointing. (Last year the CDC reported that the rate in 2004 was 10.9, but its current report lists it at 11.0. I cannot account for this adjustment.)

Although there were slight decreases in suicide among groups aged younger than 45 years old, there were slight increases in groups aged 45 and above. Seventy-nine percent of suicides were by men (see page 42). Ninety percent of suicides were by whites. Fifty-two percent of suicides were by firearm, the majority of those being men.

It's a bit early yet to know how any of this will be dissected and spun by various interests in the mental health industry. One interesting bit is that anti-depressant prescriptions increased in 2005 by 10 percent (previous reports claimed it had fallen slightly), so the "anti-depessants prevent suicide" theory isn't looking so rosy (personally, I think that the suicide rate and anti-depressant use are likely independent of one another, measured on a culture wide basis).

One other point worth making is that in 1999, the feds announced a national goal of reducing the rate of suicide by 50 percent by 2010. The rate of suicide in 1999 was 10.5 per 100,000 people, so the rate has actually increased by about 5 percent during that time.