{"id":5497,"date":"2021-02-26T10:30:21","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T15:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nchstats.com\/?p=5497"},"modified":"2021-02-26T10:30:21","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T15:30:21","slug":"podcast-suicide-trends-in-the-u-s-and-weekly-nchs-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/2021\/02\/26\/5497\/","title":{"rendered":"PODCAST: Suicide Trends in the U.S. and Weekly NCHS Updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATCAST, FEBRUARY 2021: DISCUSSION WITH HOLLY HEDEGAARD, A STATISTICIAN, ABOUT SUICIDE TRENDS IN THE UNITED STATES.<\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/pressroom\/podcasts\/2021\/20210226\/20210226.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 Last week NCHS released the latest trend report<\/a> on suicide rates in the nation.\u00a0 Joining us today is Holly Hedegaard, the lead author of this new report.<\/p>\n

Holly, so what do the latest final numbers tell us?<\/p>\n

HOLLY HEDEGAARD: \u00a0<\/strong>Well the report that was just released from the National Center for Health Statistics looked at suicide rates over the last 20 years and what we saw was that from 1999 through 2018 there\u2019s been a steady increase in the suicide rate \u2013 it increased about 35% over that time period. But what\u2019s interesting is that in 2019 the rate is lower than it was in 2018 and that\u2019s the first significant drop in suicide rates we\u2019ve seen in the past 20 years.\u00a0 While that\u2019s an encouraging sign, I think it\u2019s important to remember that a single year drop doesn\u2019t necessarily say that\u2019s a meaningful change in the overall trend is just that within a single year we saw a decrease in the suicide rates in 2019 compared to 2018<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 Youth suicide in particular is a major concern.\u00a0 What do the trends show among young people?<\/p>\n

HOLLY HEDEGAARD:<\/strong>\u00a0 So for young people suicide rates are actually lower than for other age groups \u2013 so that\u2019s a good thing that the rates are lower \u2013 but what\u2019s concerning is that these are the age groups where we\u2019ve seen quite a bit of an increase in the suicide rates in recent years.\u00a0 And so for example for girls who are age 10 to 14, their rates have increased about four-fold in the past 20 years, but their rates are still among the lowest of all the age and sex groups.\u00a0 Rates have also increased for boys and for young men but not to the same extent as for girls.\u00a0 And so again, for both boys and girls and for age 10 to 14 and ages 15 to 24, the rates are low but they are increasing \u2013 and I think that\u2019s the reason of concern about suicide rates in young people.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0What groups have the highest suicide rates in the country?<\/p>\n

HOLLY HEDEGAARD:<\/strong>\u00a0 This report focuses on rates by sex and by age group, so the report looks at those particular characteristics, and the suicide rates are highest for men age 75 and older and that\u2019s been true for a long period of time so the highest rates among men aged 75 and older.\u00a0 For females the highest rates are for women ages 45 to 64 so it\u2019s more of the middle-aged female when you look for high suicide rates among females.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 There aren\u2019t full-year data available yet for 2020, but mental health professionals worry that the stress and isolation from the pandemic will result in a spike in suicide rates.\u00a0 Do you have any insight at all about 2020 at this point?<\/p>\n

HOLLY HEDEGAARD:<\/strong>\u00a0 As you mentioned, we don\u2019t have any of the final data for 2020 yet so we can\u2019t give a definitive answer but NCHS has been generating from provisional estimates to try to get a sense of what has been happening during 2020.\u00a0 And NCHS has posted some provisional estimates for the first quarter of 2020 \u2013 which it goes through March of 2020 \u2013 and as of the beginning of last year the rate, the suicide rate, was slightly higher than the rate during the comparable time period in 2019.\u00a0 So a slight increase in the first quarter.\u00a0 NCHS has been developing some additional modeling techniques to look at the trends in a variety of different types of deaths including drug overdose, suicide, and transportation related deaths during the early months of 2020, and based on that modeling technique the predicted weekly numbers of suicide deaths early 2020 were similar to historic levels, and then declined a little bit between March and June, and then again was pretty much no different than historic levels from July through October.\u00a0 So based on these model estimates, that suggested there hasn\u2019t really been a spike in suicide mortality, at least in the first half of 2020.\u00a0 But it\u2019s important to recognize that these are modeled estimates \u2013 these are not final numbers, they aren\u2019t the final rates \u2013 and we\u2019ll continue to be refining and confirming these estimates as NCHS receives more data for the deaths that occurred in 2020.\u00a0 So as of now, we don\u2019t have anything that looks like there\u2019s been a huge increase in suicide during 2020 but that\u2019s again based on modeled estimates.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 Your report looks at the different mechanisms used in suicides in the U.S.\u00a0 What do those numbers tell us?<\/p>\n

HOLLY HEDEGAARD:<\/strong>\u00a0 The means of suicide varies by males compared to females, and for males about little over half of the suicides involve use of a firearm and about 28% involve hanging or suffocation\u2026 A much smaller proportion involved poisoning or other means. We\u2019ve seen a slight increase in the rates for firearm-related suicides among men over the past 20 years but where there\u2019s been a rather large increase has been in the rate for suicide by hanging or suffocation.\u00a0 That rate among men has doubled over the last 20 years.\u00a0 The picture for women is a little bit different.\u00a0 From about 2001 through 2015, poisoning was the leading means of suicide among women.\u00a0 But Interestingly in the last few years, since about 2016, we\u2019ve actually seen a decline in the rate of suicide by poisoning among women and an increase in the rate of suicides that involve firearms or suffocation.\u00a0 And so in the most recent years, the rates of suicide by firearm and by suffocation are slightly higher than the rate of suicide by poisoning.\u00a0 The rate of suicide by suffocation among females has actually tripled in the past 20 years.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 Now by poisoning are you referring to drug overdoses?<\/p>\n

HOLLY HEDEGAARD:<\/strong>\u00a0 No, poisoning is actually a broader terminology that includes drug poisoning, but it also includes other types of poisons like carbon monoxide or chemicals or a variety of other things that sometimes people ingest or take. But they aren\u2019t drugs there are used for other purposes.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 So your data then show that drug overdoses are really not a significant method used in suicides?<\/p>\n

HOLLY HEDEGAARD:<\/strong>\u00a0 It\u2019s different \u2013 again, as I mentioned \u2013 for men or for women.\u00a0 For men, only about 5% of suicide actually involve a drug overdose.\u00a0 For women, it\u2019s about 27% of their suicides involve a drug overdose.\u00a0 So they\u2019re not the, drug overdoses are not the leading means of suicide for either men or women.\u00a0 For both men and women, rates of firearm-related suicide or suicide by hanging and suffocation are higher than the rates of suicide by drug overdose.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 This report doesn\u2019t look at geographical differences but what areas of the country are having a tougher time with this problem?<\/p>\n

HOLLY HEDEGAARD:<\/strong>\u00a0 So the higher suicide rates are found in the Rocky Mountain states such as Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, as well as Alaska.\u00a0 So these are states that have historically been high and they continue to remain high.\u00a0 In the most current years or recent years, we\u2019ve seen increase in the rates in some of the other states in the Midwest and in the New England states, up in Maine and Vermont and New Hampshire.\u00a0 They aren\u2019t the highest rates but they are increasing, so it\u2019s important to sort of recognize that there are states in addition to the Rocky Mountain stage that also are seeing higher suicide rates.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The National Health Interview Survey issued two new reports, on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.\u00a0 On Tuesday, NCHS teamed with the VA on a report that examined multiple chronic conditions among veterans and non-veterans.\u00a0 Based on data from the 2015-2018 NHIS, the study authors found that about one-half of male veterans and over one-third of female veterans had two or more chronic conditions, compared with less than one-fourth of male nonveterans and less than one-fifth of female nonveterans.\u00a0 Hypertension and arthritis were the most prevalent chronic conditions among all veterans age 25 and over.\u00a0 Diabetes was also prevalent among male veterans ages 25 to 64 and asthma was also prevalent among female veterans in this age group.\u00a0 Cancer was also prevalent among all veterans age 65 and older.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, NCHS released another study looking at health care utilization among those afflicted with inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD.\u00a0 The study used NHIS data and found that adults with IBD were more likely than those without IBD to have visited any doctor or mental health provider in the past year, and were also more likely to have been prescribed medication or to have received acute care services such as ER visits, overnight hospital stays, or surgeries.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, NCHS released a third study \u2013 on dietary supplement use among American adults age 20 and over.\u00a0 The report used data from the 2017-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and found that over half of adults used a dietary supplement in the past month \u2013 nearly two-thirds \/3 of women and just over half of men.\u00a0 Eight out of ten women age 60 and over used dietary supplements, and older Americans are more likely to use more than one dietary supplement.\u00a0\u00a0 The most common dietary supplement used was multivitamin-mineral supplements.\u00a0 Vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acid supplements were also commonly used.<\/p>\n

Finally, today NCHS is releasing the latest quarterly provisional data on birth rates in the United States, through the third quarter of 2020, showing that fertility rates in the country continued to drop compared to the same point in 2019.\u00a0 Teen birth rates and pre-term rates also declined in Quarter 3 of 2020 compared with Quarter 3 of 2019, while cesarean delivery rates increased over this period.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STATCAST, FEBRUARY 2021: DISCUSSION WITH HOLLY HEDEGAARD, A STATISTICIAN, ABOUT SUICIDE TRENDS IN THE UNITED STATES. https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/pressroom\/podcasts\/2021\/20210226\/20210226.htm HOST:\u00a0 Last week NCHS released the latest trend report on suicide rates in the nation.\u00a0 Joining us today is Holly Hedegaard, the lead author of this new report. Holly, so what do the latest final numbers tell us?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":195,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47317,63724,15995,53751],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}