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There are more suicides than car accident victims.
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
In the United States of America, suicide has become the leading cause of unnatural death.
The findings were part of a study conducted by the West Virginia University School of Public Health and Trauma Research Center, along with researchers from nine other institutions.
Researchers also found a decline in the relative number of illnesses, while injury rates in the United States were rising.
The control period was 2000-2009, and the National Center for Medical Statistics mortality data were studied. The scientists were interested in unnatural deaths, that is, fatal outcomes resulting from unintentional or violent actions.
Ian Rockett, a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at West Virginia University's School of Public Health and lead author of the article on the study's results published in the American Journal of Public Health, said the study revealed many unexpected facts.
"Suicide is now the leading cause of unnatural death, meaning death caused by unintentional or violent actions," Rockett said. "Suicide only surpassed traffic accidents in this 'rating' in the final year of the control period - 2009. In 2009, the number of suicides increased by 15 percent compared with 2000."
The researchers also found that the number of deaths from unintentional poisoning more than doubled from 2000 to 2009, increasing by 128 percent.
"Unintentional poisoning has risen to third place among all causes of unnatural deaths. We now know that this is primarily due to a huge increase in fatal overdoses of prescription painkillers," explained Professor Ian Rockett.
Mortality related to road accidents occupies the dubious second place in the ranking, however, researchers note that compared to 2000, in 2009 the number of deaths as a result of car accidents decreased by a quarter, which can be considered a positive trend.
"There has been a lot of effort put into road safety for a long time," explains Professor Rockett. "Now the same effort is needed in other areas of injury prevention."
Unintentional falls are the fourth most common cause of human casualties, with the number of falls increasing by 71 percent over the past ten years. Homicide is in fifth place.
In addition, West Virginia University and colleagues from other institutions found that men were twice as likely to die from violence and accidents as women. However, during the control period, the increase in unnatural deaths among women was twice as high as that among men.
In terms of racial differences, the death rate from unnatural causes increased by 20 percent over the decade for whites, while the death rate from similar causes decreased by 11 percent for African Americans and Hispanics.
"Whites now die unnatural deaths at higher rates than those two major minority groups," Professor Rockett said.
The researchers also analyzed age patterns of mortality from intentional or unintentional actions. It turned out that children under 14 years of age have a 78 percent lower risk of dying a brazen death than young people aged 15 to 24. For people aged 24 and older, the similar risk increases almost three times compared to the 15-24 year old group.
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