Suicide risk isn’t confined to any single group, but certain people face significantly higher odds based on a combination of who they are, what they’re going through, and what they have access to. In the U.S., men account for nearly 80% of all suicides despite making up half the population, and adults 85 and older have the highest rate of any age group. Understanding the specific factors that elevate risk can help you recognize vulnerability in yourself or someone you care about.
Gender and Age Disparities
The gap between men and women is one of the starkest patterns in suicide data. In 2023, the male suicide rate was 22.7 per 100,000 people, roughly four times the female rate of 5.9. Women attempt suicide more often, but men die by suicide far more frequently, largely because they tend to use more lethal methods.
Age matters in ways that may surprise people. While youth suicide gets significant public attention, the highest rates actually belong to older adults. People 85 and older had the highest suicide rate of any age group in 2023, at 22.7 per 100,000. Rates for people aged 35 to 54 cluster around 18 to 19 per 100,000, while the 15-to-24 age group had a rate of 13.5. Children aged 10 to 14 had the lowest rate at 2.3, though any suicide in this age group is deeply concerning. The takeaway: suicide risk doesn’t decline with age. It increases, particularly for men living alone or dealing with health problems in later life.
Race and Ethnicity
Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native people have the highest suicide rate of any racial or ethnic group in the U.S., at 23.8 per 100,000 in 2023. Non-Hispanic White people follow at 17.6, and non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander people at 17.3. These disparities reflect the layered impact of historical trauma, geographic isolation, limited access to mental health care, and economic hardship that disproportionately affects these communities.
Mental Health Conditions
Most suicides are connected to psychiatric illness, with depression, substance use disorders, and psychosis carrying the strongest associations. Depression is the single most common diagnosis among people who die by suicide. The lifetime risk of suicide for people with depression, alcohol use disorder, or schizophrenia has been estimated at 5% to 8% for each of these conditions individually. When multiple conditions overlap, the risk climbs higher. A person with both depression and alcohol dependence, for instance, faces compounding vulnerability.
Within depression specifically, the factors that push risk highest include a family history of psychiatric illness, being male, having made previous attempts, experiencing severe hopelessness, and having additional diagnoses on top of the depression itself. Hopelessness in particular is a powerful predictor. In one study of hospitalized adults, those reporting hopelessness had nearly six times the odds of screening positive for suicide risk compared to those who did not.
Previous Suicide Attempts
A prior attempt is one of the strongest known predictors of eventual death by suicide. Between 5% and 11% of people treated in hospitals for a suicide attempt go on to die by suicide later. That may sound like a small percentage, but it’s enormously elevated compared to the general population, where the annual suicide rate is roughly 1 in 10,000. The period immediately after a previous attempt or psychiatric hospitalization is especially dangerous, though the elevated risk persists for years.
LGBTQ+ Youth
LGBTQ+ young people face disproportionate risk compared to their cisgender and heterosexual peers. According to CDC data, 41% of LGBTQ+ students reported seriously considering suicide, compared to 13% of cisgender and heterosexual students. That gap reflects the toll of stigma, family rejection, bullying, and discrimination rather than anything inherent to sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBTQ+ youth who have supportive families and accepting school environments show substantially lower rates of suicidal thinking.
Chronic Pain and Physical Illness
Physical health problems that cause persistent suffering carry their own suicide risk, independent of mental health diagnoses. People with chronic pain have roughly 2.3 times the odds of experiencing suicidal thoughts or behavior compared to those without chronic pain. The mechanism isn’t purely about the pain itself. Chronic conditions erode quality of life, limit independence, strain relationships, and can trigger the kind of hopelessness that bridges the gap between suffering and suicidal thinking. Terminal diagnoses, degenerative diseases, and conditions that cause prolonged disability all contribute to elevated risk.
Occupation and Work Environment
Your job can be a significant risk factor. Industries with the highest male suicide rates in 2021 included mining (72.0 per 100,000), construction (56.0), automotive repair and similar services (50.6), and arts, entertainment, and recreation (47.9). Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting tied at 47.9. Among women, the highest industry rates appeared in arts, entertainment, and recreation (15.0) and accommodation and food services (11.1).
When broken down by specific occupations, the numbers become even more striking. Male agricultural and food scientists had a rate of 173.1 per 100,000, logging workers 161.1, and musicians 138.7. Among women, artists had the highest rate at 45.3, followed by construction laborers at 38.6 and chefs at 32.9. These occupations share common threads: physical strain, irregular hours, financial instability, social isolation, and in some cases easy access to lethal means. Many of these workers also lack employer-sponsored mental health benefits.
Military Veterans
Veterans consistently die by suicide at rates higher than the general population, a pattern that has persisted for over two decades. The Department of Veterans Affairs conducts the largest annual analysis of veteran suicide using national death certificate data. The most recent report, released in 2025 using 2023 data, continues to track these elevated rates. Contributing factors include combat trauma, difficulty transitioning to civilian life, chronic pain from service-related injuries, and barriers to accessing care, especially for veterans living in rural areas.
Social and Financial Stressors
Life circumstances can push someone toward crisis even without a diagnosed mental health condition. Job loss, financial collapse, and sudden drops in social status are all associated with increased risk. So is the loss of important relationships, whether through divorce, death of a loved one, or estrangement from family. Social isolation is a particularly potent factor. People who lack meaningful connections, who live alone, or who feel like a burden to others are more vulnerable. These stressors rarely operate in isolation. A job loss can trigger financial strain, which leads to relationship conflict, which deepens isolation, creating a cascade where each factor amplifies the others.
Access to Firearms
Having a gun in the home is a consistent, well-documented risk factor for suicide. Every study examining this relationship in the U.S. has found the same result: access to firearms increases suicide risk. About 85% of suicide attempts involving a firearm are fatal, a far higher lethality rate than nearly any other method. This matters because many suicidal crises are temporary. People who survive an attempt overwhelmingly do not go on to die by suicide. But firearms leave almost no margin for survival or intervention.
The connection holds across age groups and both sexes. Among adolescent psychiatric patients who died by suicide, 72% had a firearm in the home, compared to 37% of those who attempted but survived and 38% of non-attempters. Importantly, people in homes with guns are no more likely to have depression or suicidal thoughts than people in homes without guns. The difference is that when a crisis does occur, the presence of a highly lethal method makes a fatal outcome far more likely. States with higher rates of gun ownership have higher suicide rates, driven entirely by the firearm suicide difference. Non-firearm suicide rates are roughly equal across states regardless of gun prevalence.
How Risk Factors Interact
No single factor causes suicide. Risk rises when multiple factors converge. A middle-aged man working in construction who loses his job, drinks heavily, owns a firearm, and becomes isolated from his family is facing a very different level of danger than someone experiencing just one of those circumstances. Recognizing this layered nature of risk is what makes it possible to intervene. Reducing even one factor, whether by securing a firearm, treating depression, restoring social connection, or providing financial support, can meaningfully lower someone’s overall risk.