Men are now more likely to die from suicide than from dementia in the US, a major analysis of the country’s top ten causes of death has revealed.
The CDC found that suicide was the eighth leading cause of death in men in 2021, with 38,400 deaths per year, while Alzheimer’s ranked ninth with 37,000 deaths.
Among women, suicide does not feature in the top ten, with 9,800 deaths recorded in this category. In comparison, Alzheimer’s was the fifth leading cause of death with 82,400 deaths.
The change appears to have been driven by rising rates among young adults, which had previously been linked to social media use and rising costs of living.
Overall, the 2021 report, the last year with data available, found that heart disease, cancer and Covid were the top three causes of death, the same as in 2020.
The graph above shows the top ten causes of death for men and women by year.
Suicides are increasing in the US and, according to preliminary data, reached a record level in 2022 with 50,000 Americans taking their own lives.
Experts have already said social media is partially to blame, with 84 percent of adults ages 18 to 29 in the United States using the platforms.
Other factors include worsening mental health among those under 35, which has been linked to rising costs of housing and raising a family.
For the report, officials analyzed data on the nearly 3.5 million deaths recorded in the United States in 2021.
Deaths were grouped according to the “underlying cause of death” on the death certificate, or the main factor behind the death.
For both sexes, accidents were the fourth cause of death (224,000 deaths), strokes the fifth (162,000 deaths), and respiratory diseases the sixth.
Suicide is not among the top ten causes of death overall.
Newly released data from the National Center for Health Statistics shows that 1,266 more people died by suicide in 2022, compared to 2021, an increase of three percent.
For men ages 10 to 30, suicide is the second leading cause of death behind unintentional deaths, including drug overdoses.
Other differences between genders included that men were twice as likely to die from an accidental injury, such as a car accident, compared to women.
There were 149,602 accident deaths recorded among men, making it the fourth leading cause of death in the group, compared to 75,333 among women, making it the sixth leading cause of death.
Liver diseases, often linked to alcohol consumption, were recorded as the tenth leading cause of death among men, but also did not make the top ten among women.
Today’s report marks the first time that suicides have surpassed dementia as the leading cause of death among men since 2015.
In the decade through 2021, CDC figures show that the number of men dying by suicide each year has increased 24 percent.
Dementia rates have also increased as more adults live longer, but suicides have now surpassed them.
Broken down by age group, men ages 20 to 24 had the highest suicide rate with 19 deaths from the cause per 100,000 in the age group. They were followed by those aged 15 to 19, with 18.3 per 100,000.
At the other end of the scale, men over 65 had the lowest rate, below 1.8 per 100,000.