Suicide Now Kills More Americans Than Car Crashes

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Suicide deaths increased 15 percent between 2000 and 2009, finds a November 2012 study in the American Journal of Public Health. (Image credit: stockxpert)

Suicide has surpassed car accidents as the No. 1 cause of injury-related death in the United States, according to new research.

From 2000 to 2009, the death rate for suicide ticked up 15 percent while it decreased 25 percent for car wrecks, the study found. Improved traffic safety measures might be responsible for the decline in car-crash deaths. As such, the researchers said similar attention and resources are needed to prevent suicide and other injury-related mortality.

"While I am going well beyond our data, my speculation is that the immediate driving force is prescription opioid overdoses," said Rockett, who is a professor at West Virginia University's School of Public Health. "There is much to be done in terms of both research and prevention."

The new study, published in the November 2012 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, also found that unintentional falls and homicide were the fourth and fifth causes of injury death, respectively. And overall, injury-related deaths were less common in females than males.

The research was based on data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

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Megan Gannon
Megan Gannon
Live Science Contributor
Megan has been writing for Live Science and Space.com since 2012. Her interests range from archaeology to space exploration, and she has a bachelor's degree in English and art history from New York University. Megan spent two years as a reporter on the national desk at NewsCore. She has watched dinosaur auctions, witnessed rocket launches, licked ancient pottery sherds in Cyprus and flown in zero gravity. Follow her on Twitter and Google+.