NEW YORK – The U.S. suicide rate fell slightly last year, the first annual decline in more than a decade, according to new government data.
In 2018, the national suicide rate hit its highest level since 1941 — 14.2 per 100,000 people.
But death rates for the nation's two biggest killers — heart disease and cancer — were down, as were death rates for flu, chronic lung disease and Alzheimer's disease.
"There are clear forces pressing suicide risk factors in a negative direction,” Moutier said, but that's doesn't mean suicide rates will automatically rise.
“It’s possible that the rise in COVID-19 is sort pushing down the suicide rate,” he suggested.