The American Journal of Public Health published a study showing suicide rates from 1970 to 2002 by age group. Suicide rates have been dropping in all age groups. But there have been some changes, increases and decreases in rates during this time that suggest age specific pressures.

Perhaps the most significant finding is that suicide rates in the youngest group, under 18 has been consistently dropping through the time that use of anti-depressant use have doubled, and the new generation anti-depressants called SSRIs have been associated with a greater risk of suicide. That appears to be unlikely given the population statistics.

Psychiatric News

Suicide rates among teens and young adults have been on the decline since the mid-1990s. In addition, suicide rates among elderly Americans have been dropping since peaks in the late 1980s.

Researchers reporting their findings in the October Journal of Public Health said they don't have enough information to determine what may be leading to the lower rates for the youngest and oldest of four age groups studied, but they speculated on a number of possible factors including improved trauma care, an increase in healthy life expectancy, the advent of suicide-prevention and depression-screening programs, and an increase in prescriptions of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

In an interview with Psychiatric News, lead author Robert McKeown, Ph.D., called the study results "puzzling" because "almost any explanation one might put forth for the drop in suicide rates should affect the middle two age groups."

Most significant to me is the gradual decrease in suicide among the elderly in the 70's followed by a rapid increase in the early 80's. Then the rate settles back to the lowest rate in over 30 years. What events affected the seniors unlike anyone else during the early 80's? A geographic study of suicide in the elderly from 1980 to 2000 describes it a function of the changing geography of despair can be shown to be largely the product of changing economic, social and demographic geographies. I'll be sending for this article. I'll comment or repost later.