New statistics out about older adults and suicides shed light on the seriousness of the problem and the need for better solutions.
According to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, older adults had the largest increase in suicides in 2022. There was an 8% increase in suicides among people over the age of 65 — the highest driver of suicide deaths. Out of about 50,000 suicides in 2022, 10,433 deaths were in the older age demographic. Just a year before, there were 9,652 adults over 65 who killed themselves.
Suicide fell about 8.4% in young people, but that goes against recent reports of a surge in mental health issues. In 2022, the CDC reported 49,449 suicides among Americans ages 10 and older — a 2.6% rise from 2021 numbers. Suicides declined in 2019 but have been rising since 2020. In 2022, 39,255 males committed suicide and 10,194 females did the same. More white people committed suicide than other groups.
Older adults have been affected especially since the pandemic, according to an American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) report. More than 45% of adults 50 and older experienced anxiety, 34% said they weren’t interested in regular activities, and 31% felt hopeless or depressed. That data came from a survey of more than 2,000 older adults.
Older adults tend to have a higher risk for suicide, according to older reports.
The news comes as a report found that about two-thirds of Medicare Advantage psychiatrist networks include less than 25% of all psychiatrists in a given service area.
“This means that many people who have coverage through Medicare Advantage plans may not actually have access to psychiatrists, given how few are considered in-network,” Jane Zhu, MD, assistant professor of medicine (general internal medicine and geriatrics) in the School of Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, lead author of the Health Affairs study, reported last month.
