Suicide calls see sharp increase across states

The new US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is struggling to keep up with call volume as it is inundated with desperate people seeking help.

From July 2022 until May 2023, the revamped hotline has been contacted nearly 5 million times — 1 million times on the Veterans Crisis Line — and 2.6 million other phone calls, over 740,000 chats, and more than 600,000 texts, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, or KFF.

The number of people who contacted the line for help increased by 33 percent from May 2022 to May 2023, the KFF said.

However, some communication that was sent to call centers in states nationwide went unanswered due to a lack of staff.

Data obtained by ABC News from Vibrant Emotional Health, the organization selected by the federal government to run the line, shows that in April 2023, states nationwide collectively missed more than 11,000 calls.

Only 15 states were able to answer calls at a rate of 90 percent or above by June 2022 — the benchmark set for the call center to receive federal funding.

From April to May, the answer rate from states ranged from 55 to 69 percent in five states, including Washington, DC, to 90 to 98 percent in 14 states, the KFF said.

Yet, the average wait time for a call to be answered was reduced from nearly three minutes to less than a minute.

Last year, the lifeline was revamped and was renamed the"988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline". It was also given a three-digit number, "988", along with a text service.

It was relaunched after data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed many people were struggling with their mental health in the wake of the stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2010 and 2021, 528,805 committed suicide, KFF data shows.

Record number

In 2022, a record 49,449 people took their own lives, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

Last year, the suicide rate for men was 1 percent higher than in 2021, at 23.1 per 100,000, compared with 22.8. Among women, it was 4 percent higher at 5.9 per 100,000 compared with 5.7 in 2021.

Bradley Klontz, an associate professor of financial psychology and behavioral finance at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, said that amid the pandemic, men suffered from having fewer natural social interactions.

Lori Pbert, a professor in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, told China Daily: "The COVID pandemic has taken such a tremendous toll on mental health. We know that stress, isolation, and changes in routine, all affect mental health."