US suicide deaths by sex, 1999 to 2020
US suicide deaths by sex stood at 23 in 2020, down 2.2% on the previous period.
The rate of deaths ruled suicide in the United States, per 100,000 population, compared between men and women. The latest readings (2020): Male at 22.5, Female at 5.6.
How it is measured
Every point is built from death certificates: each US death is certified, assigned an underlying cause under the ICD-10 coding standard, and compiled in CDC WONDER. Rates divide deaths by group population, so groups of different sizes are directly comparable, and small counts are suppressed by CDC privacy rules rather than shown imprecisely. The modern coding standard begins in 1999, which is where this series starts, keeping every year internally comparable.
What the curve shows
Suicide's slow rise across most of this window is one of the defining US public-health trends of the era, and the male-female gap is among the largest in any mortality category. Comparing the lines is the point: the gap between them is itself the finding, and its stability or drift over two decades says more than either line alone.
What does per 100,000 mean?
How is the cause of death decided?
Make this chart yours.
Open it in the editor with the data already loaded. Brand it, animate it, embed it.