The U.S. death rate is on the rise, and one key contributing factor appears to be that more Americans are taking their own lives.
This increase in the rate per 100,000 individuals — from 723 in 2014 to 730 in 2015 — was discovered when the National Center for Health Statistics crunched the death rate numbers for 2015.
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Center officials say they don't yet know exactly what caused the reversal in the historic trend of fewer deaths per 100,000 in previous year-to-year comparisons. The numbers are massaged and adjusted in various ways to cull out such factors as overall age of the population, and more research remains to be done to determine why it rose. Additionally, the Center says, it isn't a trend until it repeats itself.
But one death classification that rose significantly was that of suicides. They have been on the increase since 1999, the Center reported, and are up 24 percent since then. The death rate increase in 2015 over 2014 was just .4 per 100,000 (13.1 vs. 12.7 per 100,000 adjusted for age), but, officials say it's the longer term trend that is worrisome.
Another increase officials considered significant was seen in gun deaths (10.5 per 100,000 to 11.2). Increases were also reported in deaths from Alzheimer's, cirrhosis, various chronic diseases, homicide, and drug overdoses.
The Center released death statistics for both "crude death rate" and and "adjusted death rate." When it compared year-to-year crude rates, it found that 2015 was still higher than 2014. But, the Center notes, the 2015 crude rate is still lower than that recorded in 2001 — 841.9 vs. 855.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
