Celebrity suicides highlight troubling trend in midlife

Funding trap

Meanwhile, suicide-prevention experts said that efforts to fight suicide in the US are desperate for additional funding.

Federal funding for suicide trailed far behind other major public health issues, even though it is the 10th-leading cause of death among US citizens, claiming one person every 12 minutes, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The National Institutes of Health provided about $35 million in 2017 to fund research into "suicide prevention", with another $68 million devoted to the category of "suicide", according to the agency's statistics.

There were 45,000 US suicides in 2016. In comparison, alcoholism, which killed an estimated 65,000 US citizens in 2015, saw $500 million in funded research last year.

Private charities, which help sustain suicide prevention hotlines, also have a harder time raising funds than those that tackle some other health issues, experts said.

"Look at breast cancer. More people will die by suicide than breast cancer this year," said Dan Reidenberg, executive director of the nonprofit Suicide Awareness Voices of Education.

Almost $690 million was spent on breast cancer research last year, according to NIH statistics.

The US has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world, according to World Health Organization data. In 2015, the country had a rate of 15.3 suicides per 100,000 people, well above the global average of 10.6 per 100,000, according to WHO.

AP-Reuters