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State Health Compare

Suicide deaths per 100,000 people

Measure Overview

Suicide continually ranks among the leading causes of death in the United States, with roughly 50,000 annual deaths, year after year. Research has identified numerous risk factors associated with suicide, such as mental health issues (e.g., clinical depression), physical health conditions (e.g., chronic pain), substance use (e.g., alcohol and drug use disorders), and major life stress (e.g., serious family, economic, legal and other difficulties). Additionally, studies have shown that those with various chronic health conditions or illnesses have a higher risk of suicide. 

Monitoring suicide data in the U.S. plays a role in understanding long-term trends and patterns across various subpopulation groups, helping to inform both suicide prevention efforts and work to address the mitigation of risk factors, such increasing access to health care for treatment of conditions that can raise people’s risk of suicide. 

Suicide Deaths by State, Age, and More: Breakdowns and Data Source 


State Health Compare provides annual, state-level estimates of suicide deaths per 100,000 people using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) WONDER database. 

Five breakdowns are available for this measure: Age, Firearm/Non-Firearm, Metropolitan Status, Race/Ethnicity, and Sex.

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Updated Health Data Sets on State Health Compare: Explore Health Statistics and Health Data Visualizations

SHADAC’s public health research fellows and analysts consistently update measures on State Health Compare (SHC) in order to provide users with the most up-to-data available data. In this post, we will review the health data sets and measures that have been updated since our last measure update blog, including a short explanation of the measure and its data source.



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Suicide Rates on the Rise: Examining Continuing Trends and Variation across the Nation and in the States from 2000 to 2018

Suicide deaths have not only increased significantly over the past nearly two decades, but their growth is continuing a pattern of acceleration in more recent years: From 2000 to 2009 the suicide death rate grew by 13 percent, but from 2009 to 2018 the rate grew by 21 percent.