Suicide Rate Climbs For Middle-Aged Americans

[Honeycombe8]

It may be time to change the benchmark for discussion of public health problems in the U.S.

For quite a while, the annual number of fatalities from auto accidents has been a kind of shorthand for health issues that are big and important.

Starting in 2009, though, suicides surpassed deaths from crashes. In 2010, there were about 38,000 suicides compared with about 35,000 deaths from motor vehicle crashes.

In a new analysis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention zeroed in on suicide data for middle-aged people, 35-64, because that's where the increase in suicides has been the most dramatic. (Among younger and older people the rates didn't change much.)

The suicide rate for people 35-64 rose to 17.6 per 100,000 people in 2010 from 13.7 per 100,000 in 1999. That's an increase of 28 percent.

The CDC researchers say that possible factors include the recent economic downturn, an increase in drug overdoses and a so-called cohort effect for baby boomers. As teens, baby boomers were more likely to commit suicide than teens of previous generations. It may be that the tendency followed them as they aged.

How people commit suicide has changed, too. Use of firearms and poison rose, but the biggest increase was for suffocation, mostly due to hanging.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/05/02/180545035/suicide-rate-climbs-for-middle-aged-americans

I think layoffs of older workers may have something to do with that. Many in that age range were unable to find new work, or they were looking at an extended (years) job hunt, that might not result in a job. People's lives were ruined by the recession.

[dembotoz]

1. can not say i am surprised

easy access to means--handguns readily available although article says hanging-folk i know how did it used guns....

employment blues for older workers-no future, no retirement, health insurance costs for someone my age is astronomical.

and constant bs by republicans about the unemployed being leeches


nope not surprised

[Warpy]

2. Every year they spend working, they get a little bit poorer

than they were the previous year. That was the pattern for my whole working life as the New Deal got dismantled, high, regressive taxes were imposed, and wages kept being suppressed mostly through not indexing the minimum wage to inflation, like it should have been.

It starts to look damned hopeless after a while. I came close a time or two, myself, but the times things looked most hopeless were the times I couldn't buy a gun and do it right.

I am not a bit surprised by this. It's been governmental policy to keep us getting poorer and more hopeless for a very long time.

[Wednesdays]

3. K & R

[libodem]

4. Very sad

[woo me with science]

5. K&R Don't think this is not a direct result of chosen policies

that exploit human beings for profit and breed competition, desperation, and hopelessness as a way of life. In corporate decision-making, human beings are "human resources" entered into a ledger and manipulated as necessary to increase the bottom line.

There is far more than enough in this country to free every single one of us from the terror of hunger, homelessness, and lack of medical care. We are put into this state as a matter of policy and profit.

[winter is coming]

6. Older Americans are inexorably being reduced to the choices we had before the New Deal.

Starvation or suicide.

[magellan]

7. Um, since when is 35 considered middle aged?

Not trying to undermine the findings, just questioning the label for the age group. 40 or even 45 used to be considered middle aged, didn't it?

As to the statistics - horrifying. There's this tidbit buried in the actual report linked in the article:

Among men, the greatest increases were among those aged 50–54 years and 55–59 years, (49.4%, from 20.6 to 30.7, and 47.8%, from 20.3 to 30.0, respectively). Among women, suicide rates increased with age, and the largest percentage increase in suicide rate was observed among women aged 60–64 years (59.7%, from 4.4 to 7.0).

Not really surprising considering how this group in particular have been kicked in the ass. Foreclosure, loss of employment/savings/pensions...Life looks bleak with all that, especially if there are children to care for, or you were previously looking forward to retirement and now have nothing.

What will be done about it, is the question. My guess is zilch. This should be headline news. It won't be.

[Quantess]

8. 35 is half of 70

and 70 is called senior citizen.

I agree with you though, 35 is still (usually) a picture of youth.