Suicide claims more lives than war, murder, and natural disasters combined.

General

In 2020(latest available data), there were 45,979 reported suicide deaths in the U.S.
Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for those between the ages of 10 and 19 in the United States.
Currently, suicide is the 12th leading cause of death in the United States.
in 2020, there were an estimated 1.20 million suicide attempts
In 2020, men died by suicide 3.88x more often than women.
On average, there are 130 suicides per day.
White males accounted for 69.68% of suicide deaths in 2020.
In 2020, firearms accounted for 52.83% of all suicide deaths.

Over 50 percent of all people who die by suicide suffer from major depression. If one includes alcoholics who are depressed, this figure rises to over 75 percent.
Depression affects nearly 5-8 percent of Americans ages 18 and over in a given year.
More Americans suffer from depression than coronary heart disease, cancer, and HIV/AIDS.
Depression is among the most treatable of psychiatric illnesses. Between 80 percent and 90 percent of people with depression respond positively to treatment, and almost all patients gain some relief from their symptoms. But first, depression has to be recognized.
Based on the most recent Youth Risk Behaviors Survey from 2017, 7.4 percent of youth in grades 9-12 reported that they had made at least one suicide attempt in the past 12 months.
Female students attempted almost twice as often as male students (9.3% vs. 5.1%).
Black students reported the highest rate of attempt (9.8%) with white students at 6.1 percent. Approximately 2.4 percent of all students reported making a suicide attempt that required treatment by a doctor or nurse. For those requiring treatment, rates were highest for Black students (3.4%).

Learn more at afsp.org or call 888-333-AFSP.

Download our Suicide Facts & Figures national fact sheet or search below to view state statistics. You can also view all of our state fact sheets.