Statistics released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), indicate an alarming rise in suicide rates in the United States. Figures available for 2022 show a 2.6% increase in suicides, or 49,449 deaths—the highest number ever recorded, ABC News reported. This follows a 5% increase in suicide rates in 2021, but, according to the CDC, suicide rates have been increasing every year since 2006, with the exception of 2019 and 2020.
Several media reports on these results cite the prevalence of depression, how isolation during the Covid pandemic contributed to mental health problems generally, and, of course, the widespread availability of firearms, which is cited as one of the major causes. Almost no one identifies the real reasons: general societal breakdown—both economic and cultural, homelessness, lack of productive employment or educational opportunity, and the destructive drug epidemic.
According to Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, “mental health has become the defining public health and societal challenge of our time.” The numbers, he said, are a “sobering reminder of how urgent it is that we further expand access to mental health care addressing the root causes of mental health struggles.”
The rise in suicides in people ages 65 and above was dramatic—8.1% in 2022. But all age groups are affected, the latest report shows. In March, the CDC reported that one out of every three teenage girls said they had contemplated suicide at some point. More than half, 57%, also said they feel “persistently sad or hopeless.” In June, CDC figures showed that almost one in five U.S. adults said they had been diagnosed as suffering from depression “at some point in their lives.”
