- Majority of funding will go to improving staffing at 988 suicide crisis centers
- Over 135 Americans died by suicide daily in 2022, up from 132 the previous year
- READ MORE: Half of global population expected to have a mental illness by 75
The Biden administration has dedicated more than $230 million in grants to bolster suicide prevention efforts amid an ‘unprecedented’ mental health crisis in the US.
Suicide is among the leading causes of preventable death in America, particularly for children and teens, who make up 15 percent of all US suicides.
The grant money will go to improving the capacity for the suicide prevention hotline that transitioned from a longer, harder to remember phone number to the three-digit 988 number last year to make it easier for people in crisis to remember it.
The money will also improve access to mental health treatments for marginalized groups, including American Indians living on tribal lands.
Rates of mental illness in the US were on a steady uptick through 2018 before dipping slightly right before the Covid pandemic.
By 2021, during the height of the pandemic, which saw millions of people isolated from activities and treatments for their conditions, the suicide rate began to climb once again, showing no signs of dropping off.
After dipping slightly in the year preceding the global pandemic, suicides rebounded in 2021. The total increased five percent that year.
While women are less likely than men to carry out suicide, they saw a more drastic increase in a single year. Suicide stats show that women are roughly three times more likely to attempt suicide, though men are two to four times more likely to die by suicide
Suicide was responsible for 48,183 deaths in 2021, about 132 everyday. In 2022, that total hit 49,449, amounting to more than 135 deaths daily.
Andrea Palm, the deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said: ‘Our country is facing an unprecedented behavioral health crisis impacting people of all ages.
‘We have invested in 988, community- and school-based care, expanding our health workforce, and other critical supports. We will continue as long as needed.’
The federal suicide hotline transitioned last year from its previous phone number – 1-800-273-TALK – to 988. It was set up to connect callers in crisis directly with responders within the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Network.
The idea was to make suicide prevention resources as easy to reach as a 911 call operator. The program received five million crisis calls in its first year, two million more than the average received under the previous phone number.
From the grant allocation, more than $177 million will go toward bolstering mental healthcare staff to answer calls from local crisis centers and leveraging new technology to improve the ability to respond to local callers across the country.
Another $18.3 million will specifically lend more resources to American Indian and Alaska Native groups, who have the highest suicide rates of all demographics in the US.
Suicide rates among American Indians and Alaska Natives spiked nearly 20 percent from 2015 to 2020, according to CDC data.
Five million dollars will give crisis centers the capacity to follow up with people in crisis whom they had connected with to see if they could provide additional assistance.
The funding is also intended to help reduce the number of times police get involved with crisis calls in an effort to reduce the stigma that mentally ill people are a safety threat. Instead, the response will hopefully be from certified mental healthcare providers.
Mental Health America, an organization that advocates for improved access to mental healthcare, said: ‘A law enforcement response to a mental health crisis is almost always stigmatizing for people with mental illnesses and should be avoided when possible. Whenever possible, mental health crises should be treated using medical personnel or, even better, specialized mental health personnel.’
Most law enforcement lacks proper training in crisis stabilization and their involvement can lead to imprisonment or even death.
In 2021, at least 109 people were killed by police responding to reports of someone ‘behaving erratically’ or having a mental health crisis.
Dr Miriam E. Delphin-Rittmon, HHS assistant secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use said: ‘We want everyone to know that there is hope, and there is help. Many people who have attempted suicide or experienced suicidal ideation are thriving in recovery and leading fulfilling lives because they got help.’
The country’s chronic mental health crisis has hit children particularly hard. Rates of suicidal thoughts, depression and anxiety, and feelings of persistent hopelessness were on the rise even before the Covid pandemic.
Suicide was already the second leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 14 and the third leading cause of death among those aged 15 to 24.
In 2021, an estimated 12.3 million American adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.5 million planned a suicide attempt, and 1.7 million attempted suicide, according to the CDC
Children and young adults were the only age group spared from the increases in suicides over the one year period. That age group accounts for 15 percent of suicides overall
A year spent in isolation in a bid to stem the rise of Covid in the US contributed to feelings of hopelessness and depression in young people.
The 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey of 17,232 children across 45 states conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported more than a fifth of high school students seriously considered suicide, up 18 percent from 2019.
The nation’s overall suicide rate had been steadily creeping up since 2005 before dipping slightly between 2018 and 2020. But by mid-2020, the year the world was pummeled by a devastating pandemic and the subsequent social isolation, that downward trend reversed and rates began rising again.
Suicides in 2022 outpaced every previous years’ going back to 2018.
The only group that was spared the overall rise in suicides was 10 to 24-year-olds.
The mental health crisis is not unique to the US, though. Half of the world’s population could have at least one mental health disorder by the time they reach old age, a stark increase from the 2019 estimate of one in every eight.
Researchers behind the large-scale analysis published in Lancet Psychiatry arrived at their prediction after compiling data from face-to-face interviews with 156,331 people around the world from 2001 to 2022 as part of the World Health Organization’s Mental Health Survey consisting of data from 29 countries.
The overall risk of developing a mental illness during one’s lifetime was 46 percent for male participants and a slightly increased 53 percent for females.
Women were considerably more likely than men to report having some variety of a diagnosed anxiety disorder in their lifetimes, at nearly 19 percent versus 11 percent.
At the same time, the most common mental health issue among men was risky alcohol use and abuse (classified separately from alcohol dependence) with 14 percent reporting, followed by major depressive disorder, with 7.5 percent of men reporting that diagnosis.
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