Suicide rates in the U.S. have increased for the first time in a decade, with the largest rise among middle-aged white women, Johns Hopkins researchers found.
Between 1999 and 2005, the overall suicide rate rose 0.7 percent, while the rate among white women aged 40 to 64 rose 3.9 percent, according to a new report from the Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Injury Research and Policy.
The rate among middle aged white men rose 2.7 percent, researchers said.
The study was published online at the American Journal of Preventative Medicine and will be in the December print edition.
During the same time, suicide among blacks decreased significantly and remained steady among Asians and Native Americans.
In 2005, the rate was 11 suicides per 100,000 people, and it was the fourth leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 64, researchers said.
Susan Baker, a professor at the Bloomberg center, and her colleagues Guoqing Hu, Holly Wilcox and Lawrence Wissow, analyzed data from the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System, which provides information on cause of death, age, race, gender and state, and comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More research is needed to understand the reasons for the rise, said Baker, the study’s co-author.
“I think that certainly merits some research by people who are experts in suicide,” she said.
Suicide prevention programs have been traditionally focused on teens, young adults and elderly men, but these findings suggest a need to refocus efforts on middle aged people, she said.
She said it isn’t widely recognized that suicide rates are high among women and men in their 40s and 50s.
“It’s good to have called attention to the fact that this age group which has been ignored,” she said.
