US suicide deaths by sex, 1999 to 2020
US suicide deaths by sex stood at 23 in 2020, down 2.2% on the previous period.
US suicide deaths by sex, expressed as deaths per 100,000 population from death certificates compiled in CDC WONDER. Mortality data is the hardest of health statistics: every underlying record is a certified death, coded to standard cause-of-death categories, and the per-population rate makes groups and years directly comparable. Since 1999 the series has ranged from 17.1 (1999) to 23.4 (2018); the latest reading is 22.5 for 2020, down from 23.0 the period before.
The male-female gap is itself the finding in most external-cause mortality: the ratio holds remarkably stable across decades even as the level moves.
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