Abstract

Suicide ranked as the eleventh leading cause of death in the United States in 2001. There were 30,622 suicides as compared to 20,308 murder victims. The suicide rate of 10.8 per 100,000 people per year was higher than the homicide rate of 7.1, and so people were 50 percent more likely to commit suicide than to be murdered. On the average, one person committed suicide in this country every 17.2 minutes (McIntosh 2003). However, compared to other countries, suicide mortality in the United States is not as dire as it may seem. According to the World Health Organization’s World Health Statistical Annual (now online at www.who.int), in 2000 Lithuania, Belarus, and Russia had the highest suicide rates, almost four times that of the United States. ¹