Suicide Statistics

Revised: May 21, 2014

By: Michael G. Conner, Psy.D, Clinical, Medical & Family Psychologist


  • Suicide takes the lives of more than 30,000 Americans every year.

  • Every 18 minutes another life is lost to suicide.

  • Every day 80 Americans take their own lives and over 1,900 Americans visit Emergency Departments for self-inflicted injury (National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, total 706,000).

  • Suicide is now the 11th leading cause of death in Americans.

  • For every two victims of homicide in the U.S. there are three persons who take their own lives.

  • There are now twice as many deaths due to suicide as to HIV/AIDS.

  • Between 1952 and 1995, the incidence of suicide among adolescents and young adults nearly tripled.

  • In the month prior to their suicide, 75% of elderly persons had visited a physician.

  • Over half of all suicides occur in adult men, aged 25-65.

  • Many who make suicide attempts never seek professional care after the attempt.

  • Males are four times more likely to die from suicide than are females.

  • More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia and influenza, and chronic lung disease, combined.