A new study shows South Carolina has the 25th highest suicide rate in America.

Our state has 16.7 suicides per 100,000 people. The US average is 14 per 100,000 people.

Suicide rates were higher for people not married and those living in places with lower population density, the SeniorLiving.org study found.

Suicide rates in the US have grown by 20% in the last decade and are at the highest level since 1942.

Our county had 50 suicides in 2018, according to the latest Lexington County Coroner’s Report.

SeniorLiving used the latest data from the US Census Bureau and Centers for Disease Control in their study on states with the highest suicide rates.

The study also found:

• South Carolina’s suicide rate has increased by 57.5% since 1999, which marks the 13th largest increase of any state over this time.

• Native Americans have the highest suicide rate of any race with 22 per 100,000. Followed by whites

(17.8%), hispanics (7.3%), black at 6.8% and Asian

(6.7%)

• America has the 5th highest suicide rate of wealthy countries (14 per 100,000). Russia ranks No. 1 (26.5) following by South Korea (20.2), India (16.5) and Japan (14.3). Other data per 100,000 people shows Iran’s suicide rate of 5.3, Iraq at 1.09, Syria at 2.4, North Korea at 10.6 and China at 8.

• Firearms were the most used method for both men (56%) and women

(31.2%) followed by suffocation/hanging and drug poisoning.

Find the full study at https://www.seniorliving.org/research/suicide-statistics/ .