Suicide

Definitions

• Suicide is defined as death caused by self-directed injurious behavior with intent to die as a result of the behavior.
• A suicide attempt is a non-fatal, self-directed, potentially injurious behavior with intent to die as a result of the behavior. A suicide attempt might not result in injury.
• Suicidal ideation refers to thinking about, considering, or planning suicide.

Additional information about suicide can be found on the NIMH health topics page on Suicide Prevention.

Suicide is a Leading Cause of Death in the United States

• According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports, in 2019:
  • Suicide was the tenth leading cause of death overall in the United States, claiming the lives of over 47,500 people.
  • Suicide was the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 10 and 34, and the fourth leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 35 and 44.
  • There were nearly two and a half times as many suicides (47,511) in the United States as there were homicides (19,141).

Table 1 shows the ten leading causes of death in the United States, and the number of deaths attributed to each cause. Data are shown for all ages and select age groups where suicide was one of the leading ten causes of death in 2019. The data are based on death certificate information compiled by the CDC.

Table 1

Suicide Rates

Data in Figure 1 and Figure 2 are courtesy of the CDC ’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS Data Brief No. 398, February 2021)).

Trends over Time

• Suicide rates are based on the number of people who have died by suicide per 100,000 population. When comparing rates from one year to another year, ‘age-adjusted’ rates allow for differences in population age distributions and changes in population size over time to be taken into account.
• Figure 1 shows age-adjusted suicide rates in the United States for each year from 1999 through 2019 for the total population, and for males and females separately.
  • The total age-adjusted suicide rate in the United States increased 35.2% from 10.5 per 100,000 in 1999 to 14.2 per 100,000 in 2018, before declining to 13.9 per 100,000 in 2019.
  • In 2019, the suicide rate among males was 3.7 times higher (22.4 per 100,000) than among females (6.0 per 100,000).

Suicide by Method

Data in Table 2 and Figure 5 are courtesy of the CDC WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports.

Number of Suicide Deaths by Method

• Table 2 includes information on the total number of suicides for the most common methods.
• In 2019, firearms were the most common method used in suicide deaths in the United States, accounting for a little over half of all suicide deaths (23,941).

Table 2

Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors Among U.S. Adults

Data in Figure 6, Figure 7, and Figure 8 are based on data from the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)¹ by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Data Sources

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2021). Key substance use and mental health indicators in the United States: Results from the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (HHS Publication No. PEP21-07-01-003, NSDUH Series H-56). Rockville, MD: Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Retrieved from https://www.samhsa.gov/data/report/2020-nsduh-annual-national-report.

Statistical Methods and Measurement Caveats

National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)

Population:

• NSDUH participants are representative of the civilian, non-institutionalized population aged 12 years old or older residing within the United States.  Only adults 18 years and older are asked about suicidal thoughts and behavior.
• The survey covers residents of households (persons living in houses/townhouses, apartments, condominiums; civilians living in housing on military bases, etc.) and persons in non-institutional group quarters (e.g., shelters, rooming/boarding houses, college dormitories, migratory workers' camps, and halfway houses).
• The survey does not cover persons who, for the entire year, had no fixed address (e.g., homeless and/or transient persons not in shelters); were on active military duty; or who resided in institutional group quarters (e.g., correctional facilities, nursing homes, mental institutions, long-term hospitals).
• Sex (i.e., male and female) was recorded by the interviewer.

Interview Response and Completion:

• In 2020, 37.2% of the NSDUH adult sample did not complete the interview.
• Reasons for non-response to interviewing include: refusal to participate (10.7%); respondent unavailable or never at home (22.6%); and various other reasons, such as physical/mental incompetence or language barriers (3.9%).
• People with suicidal behavior may disproportionately fall into these non-response categories. While NSDUH weighting includes non-response adjustments to reduce bias, these adjustments may not fully account for differential non-response by suicide behavior status.

Data Suppression:

• For some groups, data are not reported due to low precision. Data may be suppressed in the above charts if the data do not meet acceptable ranges for prevalence estimates, standard error estimates, and sample size.

Background on the 2020 NSDUH and the COVID-19 Pandemic:

• Data collection methods for the 2020 NSDUH changed in several ways because of the COVID-19 pandemic: In-person data collection was suspended in all areas in mid-March 2020. No data were collected in Quarter 2, and only a small amount of data were collected in Quarter 3. In-person data collection resumed in limited areas in Quarter 4. A new web mode for data collection was offered in all other areas, resulting in 93 percent of Quarter 4 interviews being completed via the web.
• These changes to 2020 NSDUH data collection affected imputation procedures, weighting procedures, presentation of the data, and analysis and interpretation of the data. Given these changes, interpretation of the 2020 NSDUH data must be made with caution.
• New questions were added to the Quarter 4 questionnaire that were relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic

Please see the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health Methodological Summary and Definitions report for further information on how these data were collected and calculated.

Last Updated: March 2022

If You are in Crisis

If you are in crisis, call the toll-free National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL) at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The service is available to anyone. All calls are confidential.

Additional Resources

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
• Veterans Crisis Line
• National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention
• National Library of Medicine - Suicide
• National Strategy for Suicide Prevention
• NIMH Multimedia on Suicide Prevention
• NIMH Suicide Prevention
• Take 5 To Save Lives
• StopBullying.gov