Suicide Attempts Skyrocket Over Previous Decade

The number of emergency visits to hospitals in the United States for suicide attempts increased drastically from 1.4 million in 2011–12 to 5.4 million in 2019–2020, the American Journal of Psychiatry reported on June 4.

• Out of all visits to the emergency department in 2011, only 0.6 percent involved self-harm.
• That number increased to 2.1 percent by 2020.
• Self-harm visits for adults over 65 went up 30 percent between 2011 and 2020.
• Overall suicide rates have risen by 35 percent since 2000.

It’s really tragic; we started to see a big increase in suicide deaths during the opioid epidemic. That was worsened by covid, and unfortunately those rates have continued to increase.
—Luke Engeriser, deputy chief medical officer for Altapointe Health

Last year, suicide rates reached an all-time high in the U.S., with over 50,000 suicide deaths according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Choose life: Hopelessness and despair are overtaking more and more people. Suicide rates are highest in the wealthy Western world. Why?

Dennis Leap wrote in “The Truth About Suicide”:

Pouring money into suicide education and prevention programs will not stop this tragedy. Expensive prevention programs have not stopped alcoholism, drug abuse, child abuse, crime, illiteracy, poverty, spousal abuse or violence. Even with our intellectual and creative abilities, we have proved incapable of solving our really tough problems. We need the truth. The truth is this: Suicide is a spiritual problem. To eradicate suicide, we must confront it spiritually.

Learn more: Only the Bible reveals the vital, spiritual causes for this epidemic, and its solution. To learn more, read “The Truth About Suicide.”