Suicide rates on rise in younger people of color

Groups hit hardest by pandemic are seeing an increase.

A two-year decline in suicides ended in 2021, as suicide rates rose among younger Americans and people of color, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For decades, suicide rates among Black and Hispanic Americans were comparatively low, around one-third the rate recorded among white Americans. But a gradual shift is underway, as suicide rates rise in populations most affected by the pandemic.

Between 2018 and 2021, the suicide rate among Black people increased by 19.2%, from 7.3 to 8.7 per 100,000. The swiftest rise took place among some of the youngest Black people, those ages 10-24. The suicide rate in that group rose by 36.6%, from 8.2 to 11.2 per 100,000.

Among people ages 25-44, suicide rates rose 5% overall, and even more significantly among Black, Hispanic, multiracial and American Indian or Alaska Native people. The suicide rate remained highest among Native American and Alaska Native people, increasing by 26%, from 22.3 to 28.1 per 100,000 in that period.

The only racial group that saw a decrease in suicide rates across age cohorts was non-Hispanic white people. That population saw a decline of 3.9%, from 18.1 to 17.4 per 100,000. Suicide deaths in the white population numbered 36,681, more than threefourths of the total number.

Suicide rates are rising in communities hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, said Dr. Sean Joe, a professor at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University.

“That’s what we’re unpacking at this point, is cumulative stress,” Joe said. “People couldn’t bury people the way they needed to bury them. They couldn’t grieve in the same way. You couldn’t gather in the same way, to cope with these losses. So there’s a lot of unattended-to grief as well.”

A troubling aspect of the data, he said, is suicides are occurring at progressively younger ages in nonwhite populations. “We tend to lose older generations of whites when it comes to suicide,” he said.

“But among people of color, it’s always the young, not out of the fourth, third or even approaching the fifth decade of life.”