More than 49,000 people in the United States died by suicide in 2022 — that’s one death every 11 minutes, and more than any other year dating to back at least 1941, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On top of that, 13.2 million people seriously considered suicide, 3.8 million planned it and 1.6 million attempted suicide.
Though rates among 10- to 24-year-olds in the US have declined, these stats are a glaring reminder that “the silent epidemic of suicide” isn’t over, said Dr. Mitch Prinstein, chief science officer at the American Psychological Association.
The nation “still has some of the highest rates of suicidal attempts in the developed world, and the number of suicides, at least half using firearms, is still remarkably high,” Prinstein, the John Van Seters Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said via email.