Economic hardship tied to increase in US suicide rates, especially in rural areas

Whether they are densely populated or deeply rural, few communities in the United States have escaped a shocking run-up in suicides over the past two decades. From 1999 to 2016, suicide claimed the lives of 453,577 adults between the ages of 25 and 64 - enough to fill more than 1,000 jumbo jets.

Suicides reached a 50-year peak in 2017, the latest year for which reliable statistics are available. The vast majority of those suicides happen in the country's cities and suburbs, where 80% of Americans live.

But a new study shows that the nation's most rural counties have seen the toll of suicide rise furthest and fastest during those 18 years.

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