A striking report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveal that from 1999 to 2010, the suicide rate among Americans ages 35 to 64 rose by nearly 30 percent, to 17.6 deaths per 100,000 people, up from 13.7.
The suicide rate was the highest among white men and women in that age group. Their suicide rate jumped 40 percent between 1999 and 2010. One theory suggests the recession caused more emotional trauma in whites, who tend not to have the same kind of church support and extended families that blacks and Hispanics do.
In 2010 more people in the U.S. died from suicide than from car crashes - a statistic that alone seems to stand as troubling testament to desperate times. During the 11-year period studied, suicide went from the eighth leading cause of death among middle-aged Americans to the fourth, behind cancer, heart disease and accidents.
Meanwhile, suicides among middle-aged Native Americans and Alaska Natives climbed 65 percent, to 18.5 per 100,000. However, the overall numbers remain very small - 171 such deaths in 2010. And changes in small numbers can look unusually dramatic.
The manner in which people commit suicide has also changed, the report noted. Use of firearms and poison rose, but the biggest increase was for suffocation, mostly due to hanging.
"This increasing trend is particularly troubling because a large proportion of suicide attempts by suffocation result in death, suggesting a need for increased public awareness of suicide risk factors and research of potential suicide prevention strategies to reduce suffocation deaths," the CDC researchers wrote.
