The US suicide rate has increased markedly over the past 8 years
The US suicide rate has increased dramatically (via Kevin Drum whose commentary is excellent as usual)
I have two thoughts about possible causes
One hand gun ownership. I know the rate of gun ownership has declined (always explained by the alleged decline in hunting). It is rare for people to kill themselves with rifles. I have a sense that handgun ownership has increased, but google didn’t send me to handgun specific data in5 minutes. Gallup & GSS give contradictory numbers. I will look at Gallup. Here there is a strong geographical pattern with increases in the East and MidWest. That can be compared to suicide rates by someone less lazy than me.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150…
Suicide rates by sex shout out that it has a lot to do with guns. I think the evidence is mainly state level correlation http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/ne…
The other idea is recent wars and suicide. The rate of suicide among veterans is far about that of the general population. The increase in suicides in your graphs is roughly equal to total suicides by veterans. Suicide rates are highest for young men. Young veterans with recent service are most at risk. This can’t be the whole story (the numbers are change compared to total) but the correlation is in the time series.
Various places I have read suggest that 2/3 of gun deaths in the US are suicides. Only 1/3 are homicides.
On the veterans suicide issue, the numbers should be there at least for veterans since WWII so then the question becomes what has changed?
One source I read suggested that there was a lot of PTSD after the Civil War, which lead to a lot of insane asylums being built back then.
It probably also has to do with the economy. Lots of mid-life layoffs have resulted in long-term unemployment and a severe drop in living standards. The first five years are the most dangerous; after that, people apparently become habituated to their condition (at least according to this article http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3547020/).
Kris, read the Drum article. He specifically addresses the economy hypothesis. He doesn’t find it persuasive and neither do I.
I gathered that most of the increase in suicide has been by suffocation. The use of guns and poison have been declining. From the NYTimes article:
“The new federal analysis noted that the methods of suicide were changing. About one in four suicides in 2014 involved suffocation, which includes hanging and strangulation, compared with fewer than one in five in 1999. Suffocation deaths are harder to prevent because nearly anyone has access to the means, Ms. Hempstead said. And while the share of suicides involving guns declined β guns went from being involved in 37 percent of female suicides to 31 percent, and from 62 percent to 55 percent for men β the total number of gun suicides increased.” [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/health/us-suicide-rate-surges-to-a-30-year-high.html]
Also, I don’t think the rise in suicide among girls and boys 10-14 is related to their service in the military. For more on the statistics see [http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db241.htm]
I really think we are seeing the same thing that we saw when the USSR collapsed. When a society’s central premise evaporates, many of the people who have lost out kill themselves by any means at hand.
I think it was true that the Japanese society has-had a very high suicide rate. Much can be written into this but some key factors are PTSD. The loss of ones dignity, pride and self esteem from lost dreams and lost opportunity another. One can become to feel worthless, guilty, or just down and depressed with life and turn to alcohol and-or drugs to be made to a false sense of feeling good again. I think depression, then severe depression can have a death grip non some who fall into the downward out of control spiral especially without treatment…In the book “With The Old Breed”, E. B. Sledge came home from a killing war to get restarted in life. The girl at the desk asks him what is it you are good at? He replies “I’m good at killing”. She said we do not yet have a job for you…He could have gotten depressed and give up on life but instead chose to go on to become a successful university professor…