Suicide Mortality in the United States, 1999-2017

Abstract

Since 2008, suicide has ranked as the 10th leading cause of death for all ages in the United States (1). In 2016, suicide became the second leading cause of death for ages 10-34 and the fourth leading cause for ages 35-54 (1). Although the Healthy People 2020 target is to reduce suicide rates to 10.2 per 100,000 by 2020 (2), suicide rates have steadily increased in recent years (3,4). This data brief uses final mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) to update trends in suicide mortality from 1999 through 2017 and to describe differences by sex, age group, and urbanization level of the decedent's county of residence.