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The suicide rate in America is rising for the first time since the late 1990s as more white middle-aged men and women decide to end their lives.
Chicago Tribune | Oct 21, 2008
The data from a just-published study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine are startling:
Between 1999 and 2005, the suicide rate for white women age 40 to 64 rose 3.9 percent annually. The raw numbers show a 35 percent jump, from 2,429 suicides in this group in 1999 to 3,280 in 2005.
For white men age 40 to 64, the suicide rate climbed 2.7 percent yearly and suicides jumped 33 percent (from 7,916 to 10,535) between 1999 and 2005.
No other age or racial group marked similarly significant increases. Indeed, over the seven years analyzed, suicide rates for African-Americans declined by slightly more than 1 percent a year.
What we’re seeing is the emergence of white, middle-age people as a “new high-risk group for suicide,” the authors write in the journal article.
Why is this happening – and why now?
“Really, we don’t know,” said Susan Baker, an author of the new study and a professor with the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Perhaps, she notes, Baby Boomers are more prone to depression, drug abuse and their counterparts—despair and hopelessness. Perhaps women have become more vulnerable to mood disorders as they’ve pulled back on taking hormone replacement therapy around menopause.
More than 90 percent of suicides are associated with psychiatric disorders, and deteriorating access to treatment may part of the explanation, says Dr. Paula Clayton, medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Also, she says, “don’t rule out the impact of suicides of veterans” from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted a notable increase in suicides among 45- to 54-year-olds last December, the New York Times wrote “the prime suspect is the skyrocketing use – and abuse – of prescription drugs.”
The CDC report covered the period from 1999 to 2004; it didn’t look at which racial group was most affected.
The Baby Boomer hypothesis has yet to be tested in a rigorous fashion. But it appears to dovetail, at least superficially, with the largest study of happiness in America, published by University of Chicago researchers earlier this year.
That report in the American Sociological Review stated that Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) were the least happy age group of all those surveyed.
“This is probably due to the fact that the generation as a group was so large, and their expectations were so great, that not everyone in the group could get what he or she wanted as they aged,” U. of C. assistant sociology professor Yang Yang said in a statement. “This could lead to disappointment that could undermine happiness.”
Dr. Jan Fawcett, a professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico, echoed the sentiment. “When you get into middle age and start evaluating whether your dreams have been fulfilled – when you realize you’re not going to be a Master of the Universe and besides that you’re balding and aging—that can be hard,” he said. “Also, the kids leave home and that changes everything.”
Add to that disrespect for older people, stigma associated with mental health disorders, economic insecurity, and the unravelling of social networks, suggested hundreds of readers who responded to the New York Times article.
Still, there are lots of pieces that don’t fit the puzzle. In the University of Chicago study, white women had the highest probability of being happy (33 percent) followed by white men (28 percent), black women (18 percent) and black men (15 percent).
Also, a separate study recently found that Americans count middle age as the happiest time of life, the New York Times noted.
Whatever the cause for the uptick in suicides, the recommendation is clear. “I would hope that families and friends would reach out to anyone who might be susceptible — especially people who tend to be alone and lonely without much purpose in life,” said Baker of Johns Hopkins.
Before the current uptick in suicides, the number of people taking their own lives had declined 18 percent between 1986 and 1999. In 2005, suicide claimed 32,637 people, ranking as the fourth leading cause of death for people 10 to 64 years old.
Only time will tell if the current trend holds and if the profile of people who end their lives in this country is, in fact, changing.
While a rash of recent suicides related to the economic downturn has made news, those deaths are not included in the new study, which is based on data from several years ago.