US suicide rate rises
Between 2000 and 2016 United States suicide rate rose from 11.3 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants to 15.3, a 35% increase. This puts the country in 27th position for the level of suicide rate and 13th for the trend. Although still far from the Republic of Korea and its suicide rate of 26.9 and 81% growth, such trends are certainly concerning.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), many factors such as relationship problems (42%), problematic substance abuse (29%) or job/financial problems (16%) contribute to suicide. The underlying point is that this could be considered as a proxy of the trust people have in the future and it is definitively not good news for the US.
But this might not be bad news for every US citizen. When looking at results of the US 2016 presidential election, it appears that Donald Trump received the most votes in states with a high level of suicide rate (correlation around 0.5). Obviously, correlation doesn’t mean causality, but if this trend continues in the future, for whatever core reasons, Donald Trump may have a reason to consider the 2020 election optimistically.
Emeric Nicolas, Head of Data Science Dpt.
Sources: CDC, World Bank