What are the rates of suicide like in America?

  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that in 2016 nearly 45,000 Americans age 10 or older died by suicide. Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death, but is rarely caused by a single factor. The CDC reports that more than half of people who died by suicide did not have a known diagnosed mental health condition at the time of death. Relationship problems or loss, substance misuse; physical health problems; and job, money, legal or housing stress often contributed to risk for suicide. Firearms were the most common method. Suicides increase during periods of economic crisis. During the Great Depression, suicides reached 22 per 100,000 people in 1932; this was nearly double from the early-20s rate of 12.1 per 100,000. A 2014 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that the Great Recession of 2007-2009 followed a similar pattern, especially for Americans aged 40 to 64 years. It reported suicides increased to 37.5% in 2010 from 32.9% in 2005. The seven leading means New Yorkers employed to commit suicide are: Poisoning; Hanging, strangulation or suffocation; Drowning; Shooting; Using a sharp or blunt object; Jumping from a high place or before a moving vehicle; and Sequelae (due to previous illness). Two Health Dept. reports provide revealing assessment of male and female suicides: In January 2019, it provided data on male suicides during the decade between 2007 and 2016.  In 2016, there were 359 suicides among men. The number of male suicides during this 10-year time period between 2007 and 2016 fluctuated between the low of 344 in 2007 and high of 404 in 2013.  During this period, men died by suicide twice as often as women. The suicide rate was highest among men ages 45 to 64, and "consistently and markedly higher [among] white males" than other racial and ethnic groups. In a separate report from May 2018, it details female suicides for the period of 2006 to 2015. From 2006 to 2015, the rate of female suicide increased by 4 percent annually, but it remained lower than the national rate. "White females had the highest suicide rate among all female New Yorkers, with an average annual increase of 8 percent between 2008 and 2015." According to a 2010 report by the city's Health Department, "Excessive drinking kills approximately 1,500 NYC adults each year." Going further, it adds: "Alcohol also contributes to a tenth of all hospitalizations in the city – nearly 100,000 each year – and prompts 78,000 visits to hospital emergency departments, with a rate that more than doubled between 2003 and 2009."