Suicide Statistics

• 29,350 people committed suicide in the United States in 2000: 23,618 of those were male, 26,475 were Caucasian, 5,306 were elderly, 3,994 were between the ages of 15 and 24
• There are an estimated 734,000 suicide attempts in the United States annually; for every 25 attempts, there is one death
• Five million Americans have tried to kill themselves
• Worldwide, the United States suicide rate falls in the midrange
• Twice as many deaths result from suicide as from AIDS (14,802 in 2000), yet annual federal funding for suicide research is less than $10 million compared to the $2.3 billion a year spent on AIDS research in 2001, according to the National Center for Health Statistics and the AAS
• Overall, suicide rates are decreasing, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 1950, 13.2 out of every 100,000 deaths in the United States were suicides; in 1995 that statistic dipped to 11.7 and down to 10.7 per 100,000 in 2000 
• In 1999, more teenagers and young adults died from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke and chronic lung disease combined, according to the National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Bureau of Census

Source: American Association of Suicidology, 2000 (unless otherwise noted)