CDC Determines Suicide Rates for Middle-Aged Whites Increases for Second Consecutive Year

The Centers for Disease Control reported this week that for the second year in a row, people aged 45 to 54 are the group with the highest suicide rates in the United States.

There was a greater increase in suicide rates among women, but the increase was not enough to raise women’s rates to match men’s rates of suicide.  Men are still far more likely than women to commit suicide (roughly three times as likely), and they are more likely to use guns to do so.

Researchers have no simple answer to why suicide rates have been increasing steadily and sharply among the middle-aged group, but some experts speculate that the baby boomers, now moving through this age bracket, have greater access to both guns and sleeping pills than past generations.  Possible higher rates of depression may also be to blame.

Because drug overdoses can make it difficult for a coroner to determine whether a death was intentional or accidental, it is also possible that increasing abuse of prescription medications may be leading to more accidental overdoses that are ruled as suicides.  The ease with which prescription medications can be obtained, over the Internet and from unscrupulous medical providers, increases this possibility, as well as the ease of intentional overdose.

In terms of the increase among women, some researchers have speculated that a drop in the use of hormone replacement therapy after health concerns about that therapy might have contributed to higher rates of depression among menopausal women.

The figures released today reflect suicides that occurred in 2007, which was the second year in which middle-aged men and women led the nation in suicide rates.  Prior to 2006, the age group over 80 had the highest suicide rates.  The rates of suicide in this group have been steadily increasing since 1999.

Last year, a survey of suicide hotlines indicated that they were receiving higher numbers of calls, suggesting that the trend reported by the CDC today will be continuing for some time to come.