Suicide rate climbs among middle-age adults

After falling for more than a decade, the U.S. suicide rate has climbed steadily since 1999, driven by an alarming increase among middle-aged adults, researchers said Monday.

A new six-year analysis in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that U.S. suicide rate rose to 11 per 100,000 in 2005 from 10.5 per 100,000 in 1999, an increase of just under 5 percent.

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Associated Press / File

One researcher not affiliated with the study speculated that abuse of pain pills such as OxyContin could be contributing to the rise in middle-age suicides.

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The report found that virtually all of the increase was attributable to a nearly 16 percent jump in suicides among people ages 40 to 64, a group not commonly seen as high risk. The rate for that age group rose to 15.6 per 100,000 in 2005 from 13.5 per 100,000 in 1999.

Susan P. Baker, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and a study author, said she was baffled by the findings. Sociological studies have found that middle age is generally a time of relative security and emotional well-being, she said.

“We really don’t know what is causing this,” said Dr. Paula Clayton, research director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, who was not involved in the study. “All we have is speculation.”

Possible causes

One possibility, she said, is that the increase in suicides might be tied to a concurrent increase in abuse of prescription pain pills, such as OxyContin. Studies have shown that people who abuse drugs are at greater risk for suicide, she said.

Another possible explanation, she said, was the drop in hormone-replacement therapy after it was linked to health risks in 2002. Women who gave up the drugs or decided not to take them might have been more susceptible to depression and, potentially, suicide, she said.

Dr. Ian Cook, associate professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study, said stresses of modern life, particularly worries in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, might have a role.

Untreated depression is the leading cause of suicide, he said.

“The bottom line is while we can’t infer a lot of things about what is causing the trend, I think it cries out for better depression screening and treatment,” he said.

Rates steady for blacks and teens

Suicide rates declined 18 percent between 1986 and 1999, helped in part by a focus on prevention among teenagers and elderly people.

In the current study, researchers found little or no change in the suicide rates for three other age groups: 10 to 19; 20 to 29, and over 65.

Suicides for white adults ages 40 to 64 rose 17 percent from 1999 to 2005, researchers said. For middle-age white men, the rate rose 14 percent to 26.9 per 100,000 in 2005 from 23.1 per 100,000 in 1999. For white women in that age group, the rate rose 19 percent to 8.2 per 100,000 from 6.9 per 100,000.

Suicides among middle-aged black people rose 7 percent between 1999 and 2005, but it was not enough to drive up the overall suicide rate among blacks. For black men ages 40 to 64, the rate rose 5 percent to 10.4 per 100,000 from 9.9 per 100,000, and for black women in that age group, the rate rose 14 percent to 2.5 per 100,000 from 2.2 per 100,000.

Baker said she had no idea why the increases among whites were higher.