The United States has the sixth-highest suicide rate in the world, a grim ranking that comes amid a decades-long rise in suicides over the past three decades.
A worldwide ranking by international prescription service Universal Drugstore listed South Korea as having the highest rate of suicides in men and women, with Croatia and Australia tying for the number 10 spot.
Suicide has become the tenth-leading cause of death in the US. Rates increased 16 percent from 2011 to 2022, with the highest rate yet being reported in 2022 with a record high of 49,369 suicide deaths.
The US suicide rate came to 14.1 deaths per 100,000 people, considerably lower than South Korea’s 24.1 suicides per capita, though quite a bit higher than Australia and Croatia’s 12.4 deaths per capita.
Suicide rates in the US reached a record high in 2022 at more than 14 deaths per 100,000 people
International prescription service Universal Drugstore listed South Korea as having the highest rate of suicides in men and women, with Croatia and Australia tying for the number 10 spot
Men were, across the top 10 countries, more likely to commit suicide. In Lativa, men were nearly eight times more likely to commit suicide than women, the hihest ratio among listed countries. On average, men were about four times as likely to commit suicide.
Behind South Korea was Lithuania, with a suicide death rate per capita of 18.5. Then came Slovenia, with 15.7 deaths per capita.
Behind Slovenia came Japan, with 15.4 deaths per 100,000, followed by Hungary, at 14.8 deaths per 100,000.
The US, where 14.1 suicides per capita were reported, was followed by Estonia, with a suicide rate of 13.6 per capita.
Finland and Latvia took spots eight and nine with 12.9 and 12.7 deaths per capita respectively.
Researchers said: ‘South Korea recorded the highest rate of deaths from suicide at 24.1 per 100,000 people, followed by Lithuania, Slovenia, Japan, and Hungary.
‘This suggests that cultural influences could play a large role in determining suicide rates, as all of these countries are from two specific geographical regions, East Asia and Eastern Europe.’
They did not offer much by way of explanation for those high rates, but it is likely tied to stigma attached with mental health issues and seeking help in the forms of therapy and medicine.
South Korea and Japan have particularly high-pressure educational and work environments as well as social stigma around mental health that may be driving up suicide rates there.
And post-Soviet countries have, over the years, seen economic contractions and social transitions leading to financial hardship and social instability.
Suicide has become one of the top 10 leading causes of death in the US amid record-high depression rates
CDC data shows thatthe number of suicide deaths in 2022 is the highest recorded, exceeding the next closest year (2018) by over 1,000 deaths
And in the US, high rates of depression as well as the availability of firearms play huge roles in rates of people taking their own lives.
Suicide rates in the US tend to be highest in rural areas, likely because more than 60 percent of rural Americans live in a mental Health Professional Shortage Area, and more than 90 percent of psychologists and psychiatrists and 80 percent of social workers practice exclusively in metropolitan areas.
Mental illness has reached epidemic levels world wide, with roughly 280 million people having depression, including five percent of the world's adults and 5.7 percent of adults above age 60.
In the US, the rate of people who have been diagnosed with depression has reached 29 percent, nearly 10 percentage points higher than in 2015, according to Gallup.
And while men are more likely to commit suicide, women are more likely to be depressed, with 37 percent of women reporting a depression diagnosis compared to 20 percent of men.
The rate of people who have been diagnosed with depression has reached 29 percent, nearly 10 percentage points higher than in 2015
Dr Sarah Lipson, a health policy professor at Boston University and lead researcher on the Healthy Minds Study, the largest, most comprehensive study of mental health in higher education, said the reasons for record high suicides are manifold.
She said: ‘Some of the same reasons that we’ve seen increases in prevalence of depression, anxiety, and other disorders can also be thought of as risk factors for suicide. Some of these include financial stress, uncertainty—around the economy, the job market, and sociopolitical factors—and loneliness, which has changed dramatically over the last century, even if we take out the years of the pandemic.’
Suicide and depression rates are rising at concerning rates among young adults and children as well, a trend that was made exceptionally worse during the pandemic when the public was forced to isolate from friends and family.
She added: ‘And then there’s the means: how people die by suicide in this country. We can’t discuss suicide and suicide prevention without talking about gun laws. Most deaths by suicide are with firearms and decreasing access to firearms is an important way to prevent folks from dying by suicide.’
A survey conducted by CNN and the Kaiser Family Foundation found that roughly half of parents said the pandemic had a negative impact on their child’s mental health, including 17 percent who said it had a ‘major negative impact.’
A CDC report looking at youth mental health trends from 2011 to 2021 found that 13 percent of high school girls had attempted suicide, while 30 percent had seriously considered it. That jumped to more than 20 percent for LGBTQ+ teens, with 45 percent seriously considering it.
