Suicide on the Rise: Understanding an Urgent Public Health Issue
Behavioral Health Insights
By Micah Hoffman, MD, DABPN, FAPA, QME, CIME, CHCQM
AllMed Behavioral Health Medical Director
One death every 11 minutes—48,183 deaths in 2021 alone.1 While shocking, these figures only begin to convey the scope of the suicide problem in the United States today. From 2000 to 2021, U.S. suicide rates rose by 36 percent, transforming what once was viewed as an isolated personal tragedy into an alarming public health concern. The tally of deaths by suicide obscures a less well-known but equally troubling fact: millions of Americans struggle with suicidal ideation and behavior. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in 2021, an estimated 12.3 million adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.5 million planned an attempt, and 1.7 million carried out an attempt (with nonfatal results).2…
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