hedezev4
Member
- May 29, 2025
- 18
I wanted to make this post because I think many people underestimate how common suicide actually is.
Like me — and probably many others who've looked up the stats at some point — I didn't fully understand the scale of it.
At first, I thought the figure of 10–25 per 100,000 referred to a lifetime risk, not a yearly one.
Earlier today I saw a post, and most of what I'm sharing here is actually a reply to that. In that post, someone claimed that only 1 in 150,000 people die by suicide. I replied in detail, and after writing it all out, I felt like it deserved its own post.
I'll use statistics from my own country. According to different sources, there are:
1. 11 × 72 = 835 suicides per 100,000 over a lifetime
100,000 / 835 = 1 in 120
2. 25 × 72 = 1,807
100,000 / 1,807 = 1 in 55
So over a lifetime, somewhere between 1 in 120 and 1 in 55 people die by suicide.
It's also possible to adjust for age, as suicide risk differs across age groups, but I chose not to include that here.
We can also break it down by gender — in my country, around 80% of suicides are committed by men.
For men:
So the lifetime suicide risk for men is roughly 1 in 35 to 1 in 75, and for women it's 1 in 138 to 1 in 299.
These numbers can go even higher if someone has additional risk factors — such as mental illness, substance abuse (including alcohol), unemployment, a previous suicide attempt, social isolation or loneliness, the loss of a relationship, academic failure, or belonging to the LGBTQ+.
So in the end, suicide is not as rare as people often think.
Like me — and probably many others who've looked up the stats at some point — I didn't fully understand the scale of it.
At first, I thought the figure of 10–25 per 100,000 referred to a lifetime risk, not a yearly one.
Earlier today I saw a post, and most of what I'm sharing here is actually a reply to that. In that post, someone claimed that only 1 in 150,000 people die by suicide. I replied in detail, and after writing it all out, I felt like it deserved its own post.
I'll use statistics from my own country. According to different sources, there are:
- 11 suicides per 100,000 people per year (official data), and
- 25 per 100,000 per year (according to the World Health Organization).
1. 11 × 72 = 835 suicides per 100,000 over a lifetime
100,000 / 835 = 1 in 120
2. 25 × 72 = 1,807
100,000 / 1,807 = 1 in 55
So over a lifetime, somewhere between 1 in 120 and 1 in 55 people die by suicide.
It's also possible to adjust for age, as suicide risk differs across age groups, but I chose not to include that here.
We can also break it down by gender — in my country, around 80% of suicides are committed by men.
For men:
- 80% of 835 = 668
50,000 (half of population) / 668 = 1 in 75 - 80% of 1,807 = 1,445
50,000 / 1,445 = 1 in 35
- 20% of 835 = 167
50,000 / 167 = 1 in 299 - 20% of 1,807 = 362
50,000 / 362 = 1 in 138
So the lifetime suicide risk for men is roughly 1 in 35 to 1 in 75, and for women it's 1 in 138 to 1 in 299.
These numbers can go even higher if someone has additional risk factors — such as mental illness, substance abuse (including alcohol), unemployment, a previous suicide attempt, social isolation or loneliness, the loss of a relationship, academic failure, or belonging to the LGBTQ+.
So in the end, suicide is not as rare as people often think.
